Nepotism claims over Tunisian president's daughter's radio station

Sep 25, 2010, 13:47 GMT

Tunis - The daughter of the Tunisian president is to launch another radio station, officials said Saturday, in what critics claim amounts to nepotism.

Cyrine Ben Ali will launch the station, Shams FM, on Monday and it is expected to add revenue to her existing one million dollar-plus broadcasting company.

But critics argue that licenses to launch radio stations in the country are only given to family members of the president or those close to him.

Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali has five daughters. The Tunisian government has been widely criticized for its selection of broadcast licenses and its measures against journalists.

Earlier this year journalist Taoufik Ben Brik was sentenced to a a six-month jail after being found guilty of assaulting a young woman.

He claimed he was the victim of a government conspiracy and that his signature on government documents had been forged. He was arrested shortly after presidential elections and after he wrote several articles critical of the president.

In a 612-page report released this year about press freedoms around the world by the US-based Human Rights Watch, the rights group said that 'Tunisia's intolerance for human rights dissent makes it a prime example of a worldwide trend among repressive countries to cover up abuses by trying to silence the messenger.'

The report claimed that Tunisian print and broadcast media do not provide critical coverage of government policies and attributed this to the targeting of the press who speak out against Bin Ali, who has been in power since 1987.