International Media Agencies Contributed to Brightening Ben Ali’s Image

Following ten months of investigation, the National Commission of Investigating Corruption and Wrongdoings has delivered a well detailed report containing a number of frauds committed by the Tunisian External Communications Agency involving several American based organizations.

In order to optimize exposure on the international scene, the ex-regime sponsored the Tunisian American Chamber of Commerce (TACC), the Tunisian Canadian Association (TCA), and Horizons Foundation. In the period between 2003 and 2007, each of these organizations received large sums of money . The TACC received more than $40,000 US dollars, TCA received over $42,000 US dollars, and Horizons Foundations over $21,000 US dollars. None of these contracts were documented nor published, and services provided were not specified nor categorized in any way.

Washington Media Group (WMG) and Digital Publishing Service are two American agencies that actively contributed in the promotion of the Ben Ali propaganda on the net through optimizing the search ranking of Ben Ali’s websites.

On May 2010, the Tunisian External Communications Agency signed a contract of $420,000 US dollars with WMG. Tunisia’s account was handled by Gregory Vistica, the founder and president of Washington Media Group, and a public relations specialist. In return for an annual fee of $420,000, WMG worked to brighten Tunisia’s image not only in the United States but also in France and elsewhere in Europe. Apart from translating certain official web pages into English, the firm was working on “modifying” Wikipedia’s pages to promote a more favorable image on Tunisia.