Tunisia Court Orders Release of Detained TV Owner

Tunisia's Court of Cassation on Wednesday ordered the release of TV owner Sami Fehri, detained in August in a move NGOs denounced as an attempt by the authorities to silence their critics, his lawyer said.

"He will be freed in the coming hours. The judgment has just been given and we are waiting for the information to be relayed to the civil prison in Mornaguia," near Tunis, Sonia Dahmani told Agence France Presse.

"We still don't have the details of the judgment, but we can imagine why the court (decided to free him), it was such a violation of his rights," she added.

Fehri gave himself up to the authorities after being charged with "illegal use of Tunisian state television resources" during the rule of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, at the risk of being jailed for 10 years.

His TV channel Ettounsiya had aired a controversial satirical program critical of the government.

Fehri's lawyers asked the court to revoke his provisional detention due to serious procedural flaws.

They say the authorities put pressure on the judiciary to imprison him.

"The judges have decided they will no longer put up with the interferences (of the government), so now we have a decision in accordance with the law," Dahmani said after Wednesday's ruling.

Fehri, who founded Ettounsiya in March 2011, two months after the revolution swept Ben Ali from power, had been involved with a production company belonging to Belhassen Trabelsi, the former president's brother-in-law.

His detention in August caused uproar, notably because it came just days after he announced having pulled the satirical show Guignols ('puppets' in French) under pressure from the Islamist party Ennahda, which heads the coalition government.