Three Journalists Arrested For Publishing Boobsy Photos Of Real Madrid Player And WAG

Earlier this month, Real Madrid midfielder Sami Khedira posed for this photo for the cover of the German edition of GQ. The half-Tunisian Khedira is fully dressed; his girlfriend, model and TV personality Lena Gercke, is decidedly not. The spread was republished in Tunisian newspaper Attounissia, and before the week was out three newspaper employees were jailed.

The Justice Ministry ordered the arrest of the publisher of the Arabic-language daily, the editor-in-chief, and a writer. The latter two have been released, but publisher Nasreddine Ben Saida faces up to five years in prison. Said Khedira:

"I heard about the matter on Thursday evening and find it very, very sad and unfortunate that such a thing happened. I respect the different religions that exist and also the faith that people have, but I cannot understand that people cannot express themselves freely."

Since the ouster of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali last January, Tunisia's press has been nominally free. But the three were arrested under a law forbidding propaganda "likely to disturb public order and decency." Reporters Without Borders notes that it's the same law Ben Ali long used to control dissidents, and is not supposed to apply to the press.