In its report on censorship in the Arab world, it is not surprising that the repressive rule of Ben Ali in Tunisia was singled out for dishonorable mention by the OpenNet Initiative [ONI].

The Tunisian regime was long be criticized for its wide-spread and often very cruel subduing of any dissident. Even opposition websites that have no traction among the Tunisian public are attacked in any effort both to cancel, as it were, any dissident and to send another lesson to all critics.

Tunisia had arrested more journalists since 2000 than any other Arab country. This despite that fact that the 10 million people nation is home to a small contingent of journalists in comparison to, say, Egypt [75 million] and Syria [19 million]. Many Tunisian journalists, including women, have been beaten up by government plain-clothed thugs. Roporters Sans Frontieres labels the Ben Ali regime an “enemy.”

The regime is as oppressive in the online world where it ranks with China and Cuba in censorship. ONI singles out Tunisia for what it calls “pervasive” censorship. Thousands of websites are blocked. The Tunisian authorities have grown more sophisticated in recent years, however.

For starters, in an effort to pretend that the regime does not censor Western news sites, the regime was learned how to block a certain page without blocking the entire site. So while Tunisian may access the New York Times, any articles on Tunisian human rights abuses will be inaccessible.

Further, Tunisian officials have learned that dissidents are determined. Once the Tunisian authorities block on web address, the dissident will create a new one and so on and so forth with the government always playing catch-up. Dissident information then is always available at some address for some point.

The government has now started to directly attack that information rather than the web address that hosts such information. Government hackers have infiltrated dissident websites, such as Kalima, and deleted years of content. They have no sense of shame.

But as Obama often states, those against freedom are on the wrong side of history.