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Freedom Collection

Interviews with Zied Mhirsi

Interviewed October 3, 2024

Zouhair Yahyaoui is a young Tunisian Internet dissident we call them, who created a blog, or a platform, or website called Takriz. And they basically expressed the suffering of the young Tunisians and thirst for freedom and democracy. And it was the very first time we could see the possibility of a political activism and open criticism against the [Former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine] Ben Ali regime. At some point of the mid ´90s Ben Ali managed to silence everybody. At that time, Internet was not present.

So he thought, I guess, he was in control. But with this guy and a bunch of other people writing under pseudonyms they managed to shake things up and allow a lot of people to read and know another voice and another opinion about the Ben Ali regime. He ended up being tracked by police. They didn´t know where from where he was posting. It was, like catch– they were trying to catch him. I mean, for quite some time. And then he ended up in jail and he died after he got released from jail with a heart attack. And a lot of people were saying that the poor conditions in jail threatened his life. And he died right afterwards in his early thirties.