66 TUNISIA Warning: Please always quote the source below when using this information. Source: Antoon De Baets, Censorship of Historical Thought: A World Guide 1945–2000 (Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, © 2002), 463–64 [Reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.] Note: Passages marked in yellow are updates added between 1 January 2002 (publication date of the book) and 1 March 2005. French Tunisia pre-1956 Due to political sensibilities, research in contemporary history at the Institut des Hautes Itudes at Tunis was ignored during the colonial period. Tunisia 1986 Mohamed Ben Salahs book The Villages Hundred Years, an account of the history of his native village, Zamardine, from the days of French colonial rule to independence, was banned. It described the villagers' resistance and the way in which the freedom they gained was curtailed by independent Tunisias rulers. 1988 In December Hichem Djaït (1935–), a historian specialized in medieval Islamic history at the Tunis University history department, was prosecuted for an article published that month in the weekly magazine Réalités. In it, he had criticized the continuing pattern of human-rights violations, observing that, as in the past, improvements relied on the presidents goodwill. The magazine was seized and he was charged with “defamation of justice”. After a campaign in support of Djaït, the charge was dropped. 1989 In July and August, the weekly Le Maghreb published a series of articles about the history of sexuality in Islam, written by journalists Slim Daoula and Ziad Krichen. Some weeks later, both journalists and their director were prosecuted and charged under the Press Code with “undermining Islam and public morals”. Later the charges were dropped and the cases dismissed. 2000 On 23 October a double issue of the French weekly Jeune Afrique—L©Intelligent was impounded, presumably because President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali took umbrage at a lenghty profile, The Tunisian Sakharov, of historian and human-rights activist Mohamed Talbi (?1920–), specialist in medieval islamic history, former dean of Tunis University, and author of works on medieval historian Ibn Khaldun. Also see Argentina (1976–83: Memmi), France (1951: Raymond; 1952: Julien). Sources Article 19, Information, Freedom and Censorship: World Report 1991 (London 1991) 397–98. Index on Censorship, 1/89: 23; 10/90: 22; 1/01: 124. Miège, J.L., “Historiography of the Maghrib”, in P.C. Emmer & H.L. Wesseling eds., Reappraisals in Overseas History (Leiden 1979) 72..