Fergie's Tech Blog

WSIS: Swiss delegates hounded by Tunisian media

Kieren McCarthy, in Tunis, faithfully reports in his blog:

The most extraordinary thing has been happening for the past two hours. The Tunisian media has been hounding the Swiss minister for communications, Moritz Leuenberger, in what is becoming a massive spat between the two countries' governments as well as media.

It all started at the opening ceremony when the Swiss prime minister made some extremely pointed remarks about freedom on the press and lack of human rights in Tunisia.

The Tunisians took it upon themsleves to edit this part of the speech when it was shown outside of the UN-designated area of the Kram conference centre. The Swiss response was go on the record about the matter.

And from that point the Swiss delegation has been hounded by Tunisian journalists. Things got really heated when the Swiss held a press conference in the restricted media centre. The editor of the Tunisian national newspaper - a mouthpiece for the government, as well as another three Tunisian journalists took over the conference demanding to know about Swiss banking laws, accusing the Swiss of lecturing other nations, setting hypocritical standards and so on.

posted by Fergie @ 11/17/2005 10:46:00 AM