Zouhair Yahyaoui (Arabic: زهير اليحياوي, romanized: Zuhayr al-Yaḥyāwī; December 8, 1967 – March 13, 2005) was the first cyber-dissident to be pursued and condemned in Tunisia, a country that is often rated at the top of lists of Internet policing by independent third-party sources such as the OpenNet Initiative.

[1] He was the nephew of the judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, who was also a vocal critic of the Tunisian regime and its lack of respect for judiciary processes.

[2] Yahyahoui, alias Ettounsi, founded and edited one of the first open discussion forums on the Internet, the satirical website TUNeZINE (which has since been shut down).

This 'Zine' (a play on words connecting the genre to the President) drew participants from across the political spectrum discussing women's issues, human rights, economic problems, freedom of expression as well as religion.

Being a human rights activist, the new president decided that March 13 would become the national day of Internet freedom to commemorate the death of Zouhair Yahyaoui.