Two Tunisian journalists attacked by police officers

Two Tunisian journalists working for a local TV station were attacked by police officers on July 23, 2012, as they reported on the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to news reports.

Police roughed up Hiba Missaoui, a reporter for the private satellite broadcaster Tunisia World Television, and Rahma Ghalle, a camera operator for the same station, as they interviewed citizens on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, the capital, according to news reports. Missaoui and Ghalle told local journalists that they had been targeted for filming a traffic accident between a police car and a metro train. Neither journalist suffered any injuries, Wafi Bsila, the editor-in-chief of the news bulletin at Tunisia World Television, told CPJ.

Missaoui said in a radio interview after the attack that police officers had tried to confiscate their camera and got violent when the journalists refused to hand it over. Missaoui filed a complaint against the officers who attacked her, news reports said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior announced on July 22, 2012, that they had launched an investigation into the attack, the reports said.