Appendix

July 9, 2009

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Béchir Tekkari

Ministry of Justice and Human Rights

31, av. Bab Bnat 1030

Tunis, Tunisia

Minister of Interior and Local Development Rafeek Belhadj

Minister of Interior and Local Development

Av. Habib Bourguiba

Tunis, Tunisia

Dear Ministers Tekkari and Belhadj:

Human Rights Watch is currently preparing a report on the treatment by authorities of released prisoners who had served time for politically motivated offenses (whom we will refer to here for convenience as former “security prisoners”), in particular the application of measures of administrative control.

During a visit to Tunisia in March and April 2009, a Human Rights Watch research team spoke to more than 25 ex-security prisoners who alleged that authorities had arbitrarily subjected them to repressive measures, including restrictions on their movement, surveillance by plainclothes police, deprivation of passports, requirements to sign in frequently with the police, and pressure on potential employers not to hire them.

We would like to ensure that our report on the issue is both accurate and reflects official information and perspectives. We have outlined below a number of problems the ex-prisoners say they face, along with illustrative cases. We look forward to your comments and explanations. All pertinent information received by July 30 will be reflected in our report.  We are also willing to come to Tunis to discuss these matters in person with you, at a date that is convenient for you.

1.    Restriction of movement.  The “additional penalty” (peine complémentaire) of “administrative control,” as defined by Articles 23 and 24 of the Penal Code, gives the administrative authority the right to determine and to revise the location where the former prisoner must reside, and prohibits them from departing that location without permission.

The ex-security prisoners we met who faced terms of post-release administrative control all received the same basic written order defining the terms of that control.  In each case, the written order limited to specifying the address at which they were to reside and forbad them from changing their place of residence without obtaining authorization from the police. 

Thus, this written order did not place the ex-prisoner under house arrest; it required him to reside at a specified location but did not forbid him from leaving that residence.

One aspect of the application of administrative control that concerns us is that nearly all the ex-prisoners we interviewed said that local police authorities had given them verbal orders restricting their freedom, without ever providing those orders in written form. This left the ex-prisoner at risk of prosecution for “disobeying their administrative control” whereas the terms they allegedly violated were never provided to them in writing.  For example, local police had verbally instructed ex-prisoners that they were not to leave a specific geographic area without first obtaining their permission. In many cases, local police also told ex-prisoners that they must sign in with police according to a specific schedule – even though the law defining “administrative control” nowhere mentions such a requirement.  Examples include:

• Abdelkarim Harouni, a resident of Kram, released from prison on November 7, 2007 and orally told he could not leave greater Tunis without permission.
• Jameleddine al-Aloui, of Bousalem, in the governorate of Jendouba, was told by the intelligence police that he had to needs permission leave the Jendouba area; al-Alaoui was released in 2004 and faces a total of 16 years of administrative control.
• Ziad Ferchichi, a resident of Bizerte, released from prison in 2008 and told he could not leave Bizerte without permission.

Indeed, we learned of several ex-prisoners prosecuted for disobeying their administrative orders when the provisions they allegedly violated had never been presented to them in writing.  Examples include:

• Mahfouth al-Ayyari, a resident of Menzel Bourguiba, released from prison in December 2007, and sentenced to 6 months in prison in March 2009 on the grounds of violating the terms of his administrative control by travelling from Menzel Bourguiba to Grombalia on a day-trip.
• Abdallah Zouari, released from prison in 2002 was ordered to reside in Chammakh, in the governorate of Medenine. In 2003, he was imprisoned for nine months for violating his administrative control by traveling together with three visiting human rights lawyers, to the market town of Ben Ghardane, some 40 kilometers from his home.

Please clarify the nature and range of restrictions on freedom of movement that the penalty of “administrative control” permits authorities to impose on the affected person, and the source in Tunisian law that defines such powers. Also, please clarify whether authorities are required to inform in writing the affected person of the precise nature of the restrictions they are imposing on his movement.

2.    Obligation to sign in at police stations. Shortly after security prisoners are released, police authorities in their towns of residence commonly inform them orally that they must sign in a certain number of times per day or per week at specific police stations. We have found no basis in Tunisian law for the imposition of this requirement.  Moreover, no written version of these sign-in requirements is delivered to the affected party, according to the ex-prisoners we interviewed. We encountered this sign-in requirement both among ex-security prisoners who were under judicially-imposed sentences of administrative control and among those who were not.

Examples of such cases include:

• Abdelkarim Harouni, of Kram, was orally instructed to sign in with the police every day until his administrative control sentence ends in November 2009.
• Mahfouth al-Ayyari of Menzel Bourguiba was released on 14 December, 2007. He was instructed to sign in with the police every day for the first year after his release, and then weekly during the second year.
• Abdelbari al-Ayeb, a resident of Bizerte, was released on May 23, 2008. He was orally instructed to sign in with the police every day.
• Ahmad al-Maq'adi, a resident of Bizerte, was released August 2008. He was orally instructed to sign daily at varying times specified by the police until his administrative control sentence ends in 2011.
• Mohammad Ammar, a resident of Bizerte, was released in 2006, at which time he began a two-year sentence of administrative control.  The police orally instructed to sign in 4 times daily. Even after the end of his administrative control sentence, the police insisted he sign in once a week.

Please explain the basis in Tunisian law for requiring former security prisoners to sign in at police stations and whether authorities are required to give the affected person in writing the terms and duration of the sign-in requirements.

3.    Denial of passport. Many former prisoners face difficulty in obtaining passports. Below is a list of some ex-prisoners who either submitted applications for a passport and received no response or who encountered the refusal of local authorities to even receive their passport applications. Sometimes applicants wait for years without receiving any answer at all.

• Omar Salhi, a resident of Bizerte, applied for a passport in April 2006 (file number 276) at the al-Rouaibi police station in Bizerte, and has been waiting for three years without an answer.
• Hadda Bint Ramadan bin Khaled Abdali, a resident of Mourouj al-Arba’a in the governorate of Ben Arous, first applied for a passport in November 2000 (file number 14805). Since then she has written letters to the High Committee for Human Rights, and President Ben Ali asking that she be issued a passport. In 2008, the Ministry of Interior, in response to a case she had filed with the administrative court, stated that her case is “still under study”, eight years after she first applied.
• Samir al Qofsi, a dual citizen of Tunisia and Germany, had both his Tunisian and German passports confiscated upon his arrest during a visit to Tunisia in April 2006. While he was able to secure another German passport after his release in October of that year, the Tunisian authorities are not granting him a Tunisian passport and refuse to let him leave the country to go back to Germany. He currently resides in Bizerte.

Other times ex-prisoners have been refused a passport orally without formal notice, as was the case with the following people:

• Ali Rouaihi, a resident of Bizerte, released from prison in 2003, applied for a passport in 2008 and received a verbal refusal, without explanation, from the local police, but nothing further.
• Lotfi Amdouni, a resident of Tunis, released from prison in 2005, applied for a passport on August 7, 2005, but the police refused to take his application. 

We have also documented cases where the police prevented passport-seekers even from submitting their applications.  For example:

• Hedi Triki, a resident of Sfax, released from prison in 2002, attempted to apply for a passport in 2004 at the Souq Zaitoun police station. The police there told not him to leave his application there because it would be refused.
• Brahim Sa’adani, a resident of Tunis, released from prison in 2000, applied for passport for first time in 2004.  After he presented his application, the police summoned him and asked him to sign a paper promising never to re-apply for a passport, Sa’adani said.  He signed it but did not get a copy of this document.

In some cases filed by passport seekers, the administrative court had ruled that the authorities had exceeded their authority when they refused to process an applicant’s passport application but even after such rulings, the Ministry of Interior did not process the application. This was the case for Hocine Jelassi, a resident of Tunis, who received a favorable ruling from the Tunis administrative court of appeals on December 11, December 2007 (case 25859) , but who has yet to receive any response to his application for a passport.

Please explain the legal basis for denying passports to what seems to be the vast majority of ex-security prisoners, regardless of whether they are under administrative control when they apply; whether authorities are required to respond to an application within a specified period of time; whether authorities are required to provide a justification in writing when refusing a passport, and whether local authorities have the authority to refuse even to take passport applications from individuals.

We also wish to understand the legal consequences of decisions by administrative courts in Tunisia.  Does a court ruling that authorities exceeded their powers when they provided no answer to an applicant for a passport impose any obligation on the authorities to then process the person’s application?

For each of the individuals listed above who applied for passports and have received neither a passport nor a written refusal, kindly provide us the status of their application for a passport and the reasons why authorities have not responded.

4.    Arbitrary extension of the duration of administrative control. We have documented cases where the police allegedly continue to apply administrative control measures on former prisoners even after the completion of their judicially imposed sentence. Such is the case of Abdallah Zouari, who was released from prison in June 2002 and began serving his five year term of administrative control, confined to Chammakh, in the governorate of Zarzis.  On June 5, 2007, the last day of his administrative control period, the police chief of the district police station of Hassi Djerbi summoned him and informed him orally that they were extending by 26 months his confinement to the Zarzis area.  He has never received any written justification of this extension, which remains in effect today. 

Please explain the legal basis for the 26-month prolongation in June 2007 by an administrative official of the five-year sentence of administrative control imposed on Abdallah Zouari.

5.    Failure to provide ex-prisoners copies of their prison medical files. Some ex-prisoners alleged to us that the prison administration has either refused to provide them with their medical records from the period of incarceration, or simply not responded to their request for these records, thereby hindering the ability of ex-prisoners with medical problems to seek proper treatment.

• Waheed al-Sara'iry, a resident of Tunis, released from prison in 2008. He asked for his medical files in January 2009 and never received a response.
• Ridha Boukadi, a resident of Haï Nasr in Tunis, released in November 2008. Boukadi state that prison authorities have not responded to his requests for a copy of his medical records.

6.   Obstacles in the way of finding employment.  We were struck by the number of capable-seeming ex-prisoners had been unemployed since their release. Those who worked in the public sector before their imprisonment invariably lost their posts and have been unable to obtain public sector work since their release. Several of them, living in different parts of the country, told us that they have been unable to find work in the private sector because authorities pressure employers not to hire them.  They know this, they say, because employers have told them privately that public authorities had contacted or visited them and warned them not to hire specific former prisoners.  While it was difficult for us to find employers willing to talk about this subject, one shop owner in Bizerte told us police officers had instructed him to fire an ex-security prisoner he had hired.

Does the government have a policy of discouraging employers from hiring ex-security prisoners? Is it aware of an alleged pattern whereby security officials visit employers and advise them against hiring former security prisoners, or in favor of firing those it has already hired?

We look forward to reading your comments on the above issues, as well as any additional comments you wish to provide on the issues of administrative control and the status of former security prisoners.

As noted above, we will reflect in our forthcoming report all pertinent information you provide to us by July 30. We also reiterate our interest in meeting you in person to discuss these issues, before our report has been finalized and when your comments can be fully incorporated.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,

Sarah Leah Whitson