The Tunisian government should release journalist Abdullah Zouari immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch has said. Zouari was arrested after he assisted a Human Rights Watch research mission in the south of Tunisia. Zouari, currently in Harboub prison, has faced constant harassment since he completed an 11-year prison sentence in June 2002.

Tunisian cyber-dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui, jailed for two years for allegedly "putting out false news" on his Internet website TUNeZINE.com, has won the first Cyber-Freedom Prize awarded by Reporters s@ns frontières - Globenet for 2003. At least 51 cyber-dissidents are in prison around the world.

Amnesty International has called on the Tunisian government to urgently reform its justice system as the human rights organisation published a new report revealing endemic human rights abuse in Tunisia, where even the number of people held in its prisons is a secret.

PEN American Centre has named Zouhair Yahyaoui, a Tunisian Internet activist whose popular electronic magazine earned him a 2-year prison term, as a recipient of its 2003 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Awards. The awards, which honor international literary figures who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising or defending the right to freedom of expression, will be presented at PEN's Annual Gala on April 22, 2003 at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

Press-freedom conditions in Tunisia were under the spotlight last week as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called on Tunisian authorities to release two journalists from prison.