Journalist attacked in Tunisia

Four men, believed to be plain-clothed police, seized independent journalist Slim Boukdhir near his home in Tunis yesterday evening (Wednesday 28 October), beating him, stripping him of his clothes, ID, money and phones and drawing a knife while threatening to kill him “next time”.

The kidnapping and assault occurred two hours after Boukhdhir was interviewed by the BBC, where he discussed President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s internationally derided election victory on Sunday and a banned book by two French journalists on Ben Ali’s wife and her rising influence in the country.
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Two sides of the argument

Coincidence or serendipity? Index on Censorship has found itself oddly placed by legal developments in a long running spat between Israeli and UK human rights activists and the Israeli Medical Association (IMA).

Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHRI) and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) accuse the IMA of failing to properly investigate reports that some Israeli doctors had overseen the torture of Palestinians by Israeli security forces.
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