The Tunisian High Audiovisual and Communications Authority (haute autorité indépendante de la communication audiovisuelle-Haica) threatens to withdraw the accreditation of the private channel Hannibal TV if it does not clarify, as soon as possible, the situation of the journalists it recently laid off.

Indeed, on August 16, 2018, 34 journalists, technicians and agents were informed of their termination. The problem here is that Hannibal TV is refusing to negotiate the journalists’ indemnities legally.

Ali Achour, the general secretary of the channel’s employees union, explains that the management is sacking 34 employees without paying all their indemnities so the workers refused to negotiate without representatives of the labor inspectorate and the Tunisian General Labor Union.

"Because of their rejection, the management considered that those employees are already terminated”, the secretary explained.  

The Haica’s involvement is, therefore, putting pressure on Hannibal TV which has not paid the salary of at least 152 employees since June 2018.

Servan Ahougnon