TUNIS (Reuters) - A Tunisian court handed a reporter a three-month prison sentence on Tuesday for broadcasting images of another person without their consent, the second journalist to be imprisoned in the north African country in a week.

Zouhair Makhlouf, an online journalist and member of the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), was arrested in the run-up to a presidential election on October 24.

Makhlouf had published a video report on news Web site Essabil about environmental and social problems in the seaside industrial area of Nabeul, 50 km southeast of the capital Tunis.

A local craftsman featured in the video filed a complaint, saying Makhlouf had broadcast his image without his permission in conditions that offended his dignity.

Makhlouf was jailed and ordered to pay 6,000 Tunisian dinars in damages.

"The prosecution case has been completely fabricated, as it was in journalist Taoufik Ben Brik's trial," press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement during the trial. "The charges against Makhlouf are absurd and contradictory."

Ben Brik, a staunch critic of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's government, was handed a six-month prison term on November 26 for beating up a woman on the street. His lawyers said he was the victim of a police operation to entrap him.

The case triggered a rare moment of tension with Tunisia's ally France after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was disappointed at Ben Brik's arrest.

Ben Ali, re-elected last month with 89.62 percent of the vote, responded by attacking "foreign interference".