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French journalist roughed up in Tunis
But the French opposed the invasion of Iraq!
TUNIS — A French journalist investigating human rights abuses in Tunisia was gassed, beaten and stabbed on the eve of a United Nations information technology summit, his editors said yesterday.

Christophe Boltanski, 43, a reporter for the left-leaning daily Liberation, was attacked in “suspicious circumstances” on Friday night near his hotel in the embassy district of the capital Tunis, the newspaper said. The journalist, his face marked by grazes and bruises, described being assaulted by four hard boyz men with cropped hair and wearing sports clothing who blinded him with a canister of tear gas before throwing him to the ground, punching and kicking him.

He also suffered a knife wound three centimeters long and one centimeter deep to his heinie lower back, before one of the men shouted in French “That’s enough” and the men fled.

They stole a bag containing a small amount of cash, notebooks, a USB computer memory key, telephone and a return air ticket to Paris. The journalist said he shouted for help, but several police guarding the nearby Czech Republic embassy did not intervene.
"What's that guy yelling?"
"Beats me, I don't speak French."
"How do you know it's French?"
"Because I can't understand him!"
On Friday, Liberation published a report by Boltanski about clashes between police and activists protesting in support of seven hunger strikers campaigning for the release of 400 “political prisoners” jailed as common criminals.

“It was surprising because it’s a quiet street. There is a synagogue and numerous embassies guarded by police not far from the hotel,” the reporter told AFP, without suggesting a hypothesis for the attack.

A Tunisian official told AFP an inquiry was activated immediately after the assault and two of the usual suspects were arrested. “The Tunisian authorities give an assurance they won’t spare any effort to arrest and bring to justice the perpetrators of this criminal assault,” the official said.
Then he laughed.

Posted by: Steve White 2005-11-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=134891