Tunisan blogger Fatma Riahi, who is known online as Arabicca, has been released by police investigating whether she is the author of Blog de Z, according to a posting on the Free Arabicca blog.
According to Al Jazeera, Riahi was first summoned to appear before the Criminal Brigade of Gorjani in Tunis on Monday.
She was released only to be arrested the next day. Her home was searched, and her computer was confiscated, while police accessed her social media accounts.
During this time, she recieved little access to her lawyer Laila Ben Debba.
Riahi has not yet been charged as the police claim her file has not yet been given to a prosecutor, however if convicted she may face a three year prison sentence.
It is still possible that she may be re-arrested.
Join the Facebook group to show your solidarity with Fatma Riahi.
She has done nothing wrong, and neither has the author of Blog de Z, whose latest cartoon is of a bird with an "I'm not Fatma" sign.
Riahi's friend and fellow blogger Aymen Jamani gave the Los Angeles Times a copy of Riahi's final post before she removed her blog shortly before she was first arrested:
An exerpt:
Wanting to live free, read the newspaper you want, meet with friends or colleagues in a coffee house to discuss the development plan proposed by the municipality or the government, for coastal protection, the devastating side effects of the construction of a Marina, the curriculum of our children, to organize a concert of solidarity with a cause, to develop a campaign for the candidate best able to convey our ideas...to create an association to safeguard the Andalusian music or Berber language or to support victims of floods, to create a journal, write an article...participate in the organization of city life, it seems that this is what POLITICS means.
Unsurprisingly for a regime so keen to stifle dissent, a number of bloggers
have been arrested by the Tunisian authorities.
Global Voices Online ranks Tunisia as the country which arrested the fourth highest amount of bloggers in the past few years.
Only China, Egypt and Iran arrested more.
Journalism in Tunisia is also under threat.
On October 29th, Taoufik Ben Brik was arrested last week on charges of assault, which Reporters Without Borders regard as "bogus".
Ben Brik recently published a number of articles critical of the government of Tunisia in the French press.
Journalist Slim Boukhdhir was also attacked by five men on October 20th, two hours after he gave an interview alleging a lack of press freedom in Tunisia to the BBC, Amnesty International reports.
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