TUNIS, Nov 17: A debate about freedom of expression simmered at a UN communications summit on Thursday as a French campaigner was stopped from attending and China and Senegal defended limits on free speech.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade told journalists at the summit that he regretted having given too much freedom to the press.

“I went too far with these freedoms and noticed that some people do not know how to use freedom,” Wade said.

Mr Wade was being asked about legal action against the heads of a private media group after they interviewed the head of breakaway independence movement in the south of the country.

The head of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Robert Menard, was denied entry to Tunisia after he flew in to attend the World Summit for the Information Society.

His Paris-based group said Tunisian officials boarded the flight from Paris shortly after its arrival in Tunis to say he could not disembark as he was “not accredited” for the summit.

“I have all my papers in order to enter the country, a passport and an accreditation number for the WSIS, and they are telling me I can’t come in,” Menard said in a phone call to a colleague.

Tunisian authorities have said on several occasions that Menard is “subject to a legal injunction” under which he can enter the country only with the permission of a magistrate.—AFP