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From the IFEX-TMG Report of April 2007: Independent organisations In the first report of the IFEX-TMG we observed restrictions on freedom of association, including the right of organisations to be legally established and to hold meetings. We then recommended that the Tunisian government to respect international standards on freedom of association and freedom of assembly and that they grant legal recognition to independent civil society groups. The second report documented no progress on our recommendations. During the fourth mission we documented a series of new attacks on legally recognised, independent organisations, such as the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), The Tunisian Association of Magistrates (ATM) and the Tunisian Association for Democratic Women (ATFD). Severe harassment of these organisations, including smear-campaigns in the media, and other problems facing these legal organisations, has resulted in an almost complete state of inactivity. The Tunisian authorities have made certain that these organisations are not able to work. Funds are blocked, Internet and e-mail is blocked or monitored, phone lines are disconnected and cell phones monitored and regular mail service is stopped. In short, they are unable to carry out the work they have previously been legally authorised to do. These attacks represent a serious deterioration in respect for freedom of association. We therefore strongly reiterate our recommendation that the Tunisian government must allow legal NGOs to work, and must allow independent organisations to be established without requiring prior political approval. The National Council for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT) The surveillance is the same every day. The same team of police monitors all the traffic in and out of the CNLT office, and often is seen in the shops close to the CNLT office. Since 2004, CNLT has not been able to hold its annual congress. CNLT cannot make any collective decisions or make changes to its board. It is impossible for the organisation to hold even small meetings because all meetings, even meetings of the board, are prohibited. CNLT submitted an appeal to become a legal organisation before an administrative court in March 1999, but there is still no reply. According to CNLT, some visitors to the CNLT offices, who come to lodge complaints about harassment, are stopped by the police, taken to the police station and forced to sign a document stating they will never return to CNLT again. In addition, CNLT has seemingly become the target of a new form of harassment, i.e. fiscal harassment. As CNLT is not officially recognised, its offices are located in the apartment of an individual, Mr. Omar Mestiri, who faces fiscal harassment from the tax office for the period during which he was under house arrest and the period during which he has been residing abroad. As a member of the editorial board of Kalima newspaper, this harassment has potentially bad consequences for Kalima, which aims to be an independent voice in the Tunisian print media.[1] The closure of Kalima would be a terrible blow to pluralism in a country where the print media already suffers from its lack of pluralism. The Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH) All the local offices of the League are under police surveillance. The situation has worsened since WSIS in late 2005. The board of LTDH can meet, but LTDH is not allowed to arrange congresses and training sessions. Since April 2006, there have been no further meetings. LTDH does not receive regular mail, and since 5 July 2006 e-mail and all Internet access have been blocked. There are daily campaigns against the League in the media and the League’s President, Mokhtar Trifi, has been insulted in Parliament as a “spy” for the USA. There is not one week, according to Mr. Trifi, that the League does not get attacked, including on television. The authorities do not want to shut down the League. Simply put, their goal is to prevent the League from carrying on its activities, according to Souhayr Belhassen, Vice-President of the League. On 30 October 2006, the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs circulated a verbal note to all embassies in Tunisia. The note reminded the representatives of foreign governments in Tunisia that the League could not lead any activities because of the pending trials,[2] adding that it can only hold a congress. This verbal note followed two aborted visits to the LTDH section of Bizerte by the American authorities. A reminder was sent to all foreign missions on 1 December 2006 as a significant number of diplomats showed solidarity by visiting the League headquarters following the first note of 30 October. Support by some foreign diplomats has had a tendency to wane since WSIS. On 17 February 2007, in full contradiction of the verbal notes issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the verdict was delivered in the latest of a long series of trials pending against the League. The convocation of the Board, which intended to hold the congress of the League in September 2005 and in May 2006, was cancelled. In other words, LTDH is now forbidden to hold its congress. It seems to us that the Tunisian authorities have been conveying the following contradictory message: The only activity LTDH is allowed to do is to prepare for its congress, yet it is not allowed to actually hold it. The Tunisian authorities are therefore trying to turn the oldest human rights organisation in the African continent and the Arab world into an empty shell. The TMG remains deeply concerned about the intense political pressure that is being placed on the independent LTDH by the authorities and by people close to the ruling party. The Observatory for the Freedom of Press, Publishing and Creation in Tunisia (OLPEC) The organisation is concerned that the conditions of freedom of expression in Tunisia have worsened since WSIS. They are concerned that authorities will use the events of December 2006[3] as a reason to increase pressure on civil society. The fact that the organisation still exists is in itself an achievement. OLPEC submitted an appeal to become a legal organisation before an administrative court in 2001, but there is still no reply. Consequently, OLPEC is still not legal and cannot have offices, or open a bank account. OLPEC is officially non-existent. Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) Like LTDH, the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) is one the few legally approved and independent NGOs in the country. ATFD’s new President, Mrs. Khedija Cherif, told TMG mission members that members of the Association are increasingly harassed. A new form of harassment includes the exclusion of Academic members of the Association from academic conferences. The Faculty of Law of Sfax even cancelled a conference once to avoid participation of a member of the Association. In international meetings (ATDF can participate in such meetings unlike CNLT or OLPEC for instance), members of the Association are verbally targeted by the representatives of the official associations. According to ATFD, post-WSIS repression has deepened, and grown more perverse and more diverse. In addition to the usual forms of harassment against the association that had been used pre-WSIS (police surveillance, exclusion from the media, smear campaigns in the media targeting the Association etc.), a new form of harassment has emerged following WSIS: economic harassment via the blocking of the association’s finances. The third part of the European Union (EU) funding, channelled through the Friedrich Naumann foundation as part of the “equality” project is blocked by the Tunisian authorities as of May 2006. AFTD wrote to the Ministry of the Interior several times to enquire about the blocking (September 2006, November 2006 and January 2007), but so far to no avail. When EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner questioned the Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs about the blocking on 1 February 2007, the latter said he did not know about it. In June 2006 ATFD was forced to hold its congress at its headquarters. As usual, it was not possible for the association to rent a room in town. Journalists and dissidents In the first report of the IFEX-TMG we observed restrictions on the freedom of movement of human rights defenders and political dissidents together with police surveillance, harassment, intimidation and interception of communications. At the time of the second report we had witnessed no progress on our recommendations. As of March 2007 the situation has worsened, in particular with regard to the increased harassment of independent Tunisian journalists. We therefore strongly reiterate our concern about systematic harassment of journalists, activists and dissidents, and urge that immediate steps be taken to remove political surveillance and harassment of individuals engaged in the legitimate defence of human rights and the right to freedom of expression. At the time of this latest report, we further recommend the EU make broader use of the 2004 guidelines on human rights defenders. See: http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/GuidelinesDefenders.pdf
The recent (April 2007) mission of the TMG shed light on the absence of positive progress for journalists and human rights activists in Tunisia. Both groups are being systematically harassed by the authorities through the withholding of mail and e-mail, through arbitrary travel bans and through interference by government employees in their private lives, including surveillance and harassment which often also extends to their families and friends.
[1] The TMG witnessed at first hand the authorities’ refusal to allow new independent journals. On 10 September 2005, Mark Bench, Executive Director of the World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC) and Alexis Krikorian, Director, Freedom to Publish Committee of the International Publishers’ Association (IPA), accompanied Sihem Bensedrine, editor of the online magazine Kalima with two other contributors to the Ministry of the Interior in Tunis to register the declaration of the establishment of Kalima. In violation of Article 13 of the Tunisian Press Code the Interior Ministry official refused to acknowledge receipt of their request. It is the fourth time since 1999 that the Interior Ministry refused to comply with Tunisian law by handing Bensedrine a receipt acknowledging that she officially informed them of her request to establish a newspaper.
[2] LTDH has had to face 34 trials since 2000, which amounts to judicial harassment. For more on the trials, please see previous TMG reports on http://campaigns.ifex.org/tmg [3] The Tunisian government censored information about the deadly clashes between security forces and armed groups in the end of December 2006 and in early January 2007 in the Southern suburbs of Tunis. In 2005, the TMG highlighted the following cases: Respectively, editors of the French and Arabic sections of the online magazine Kalima (www.Kalima.tunisie.com) and human rights defenders, Ben Sedrine and Rejiba are often harassed and are under continuous police surveillance. Scores of plain-clothed policemen are sometimes in front of their respective homes. Both Ben Sedrine and Rejiba, also known as Um Zyed, became among the favorite targets of the Tunisian political police, for shedding light on human rights violations and crossing “red lines”, such as criticizing President Ben Ali’s autocratic rule and the involvement of members of his family in shady business deals. Ben Sedrine was arbitrarily detained for weeks in 2001 after tackling the issue of corruption in Tunisia during a program aired by a London-based satellite channel.
Other human rights defenders and political activists are also popular targets for the plain-clothed political police. The long list of the frequently harassed human rights defenders and dissidents of different political trends include Radhia Nasraoui, Moncef Marzouki and his brother Mohamed Ali Bedoui (now living in Western Europe, after being arbitrarily imprisoned and fired from their respective positions as medical professor and teacher). Others include:
Many Tunisian dissidents living abroad, particularly in France, such as Ahmed Manai, Mondher Sfar and Taher Labidi, have been harassed and physically assaulted during the past years by “unidentified” thugs. Relatives and children of political or rights activists living in Tunisia or in exile and former prisoners of conscience, mainly Islamists, are among the favorite targets of the Tunisian police. Many Tunisians have also paid a heavy price, varying from losing their job to imprisonment for simply assisting some of the needy families of imprisoned Islamist activists. |
Sihem
Ben Sedrine and Neziha Rejiba; harassed.
Rejiba was given a suspended sentence of eight months and a
fine of 1,200 Dinars (nearly $1,000 U.S.) for allegedly violating
foreign currency laws. Human rights lawyers said the charges
“are fabricated and aimed at tarnishing her image because
of her political activities and courageous articles.”
This suspended sentence and fine came after Rejiba criticised
the overwhelming presence of President Ben Ali’s portraits
in the public sphere  |