Tunisian journalists Sufian Al-Shourabi and Nazir al-Katari have not been heard from since September 8, shortly after they had been in police custody for trespassing in Libyan oil fields while reporting for Tunisian television. Shortly after their one-day detainment, they called their families but have not been heard from since.

Tunisian journalists Sufian Al-Shourabi and Nazir al-Katari have not been heard from since September 8, shortly after they had been in police custody for trespassing in Libyan oil fields while reporting for Tunisian television. Shortly after their one-day detainment, they called their families but have not been heard from since.

“We fully understand the concerns of the journalists’ families and for this reason we met with them on more than one occasion to explain the critical situation of their sons, the sensitivity of the topic and its difficulty,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mokhtar Chaouachi.

Omar al-Sanki, Libya’s Interior Minister, during a November 4 meeting with his Tunisian counterpart, said the abducted Tunisian journalists are being held by tribes and that they are in good health. He confirmed that they will be released within a maximum period of two weeks. That deadline has come and gone.

Mongi Hamdi, Tunisia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the Libyan government is fully responsible for the safety of the two abducted journalists. In a lengthy meeting with his counterpart Muhammad al-Dayri, on the margins of his participation in the World Investment Forum held in Geneva this past October, Hamdi urged the Libyan government to exert all possible efforts in finding the two kidnapped journalists and ensuring their safe release and return to Tunisia as soon as possible. 

The involvement of civil society 

The Tunisian Journalists Syndicate formed a “crisis cell” to pursue the matter. A letter was prepared and sent by the syndicate to the official Libyan authorities demanding solutions that would lead to the release of the abducted journalists.

Ziad Dabbar, a member of the syndicate, told Correspondents that the crisis cell is following-up on a daily basis. He confirmed that there have still been no new developments other than the news on the presence of the two journalists in the Libyan Ajdabiya area, although he also said that the news has not yet been confirmed.

“The security conditions in Libya are very complicated and the threads are tangled. For this reason, there isn’t one single party with whom we can negotiate the release of the journalists.”

Tunisia Center for Freedom of the Press, an NGO, has called on the Tunisian authorities to immediately intervene to end the detention of the two journalists.

The center has called on the UN Mission in Libya to give this topic its utmost importance and to use its powers and its relationship with the Libyan authorities to ensure the release of the journalists.

Civil society organizations in Tunisia staged a demonstration on November 8, in solidarity with Sofian al-Shourabi and Nazir al-Katari, at the Pasteur Square in Tunis.

The demonstration was attended by a number of the journalists’ family members,  journalists, bloggers, lawyers and representatives of civil society organizations such as the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, Reporters without Borders – the Tunisian branch, the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights,  and the Tunisian Organization against Political Violence, in order to express their full solidarity with the kidnapped journalists.

The fears of the two families

The family of 25-year-old Nazir al-Katari is impatiently waiting for the release of its eldest son. Sami, al-Katari’s father told Correspondents in a telephone conversation: “The family is living in fear because all scenarios are possible in Libya.” 

A second sit-in was organized on November 12, in front of the Gafsa State headquarters in southern Tunisia during which time, Libyan parties were asked to release the kidnapped journalists and to take into consideration the psychological impact of their detention on their families.

Al-Katari expressed extreme concern over the possibility that his son may be detained by militant terrorist groups. “These groups do not know what mercy is and they even lack any humanitarian and moral values.  They may harm, mistreat and kill their victims,” he said.

This is the second attack of its kind on Tunisians in Libya after the abduction of two Tunisian diplomats in July 2014, who were released after very difficult negotiations and mediations a few months after their abduction.