(New York, April 28, 2000) --Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International today called for the immediate release of Jallal Zoughlami, brother of journalist Taoufiq Ben Brik, who has been on hunger strike since April 3. The international human rights organizations strongly condemned the Tunisian government for physical assaults in recent days that injured human rights activists and lawyers in Tunisia. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called on the government to drop charges against Ben Brik, return his passport to him, and stop immediately the escalating campaign of intimidation against Tunisia's human rights defenders and their relatives.
"This kind of intimidation and repression against activists and their families has been going on for a long time, but the arrest of Jallal Zoughlami is an alarming escalation. Once again the Tunisian authorities have responded with repression and physical force against people who are simply trying to exercise one of the most fundamental human rights, the right to free speech."
Hanny Megally
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa Division
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"This kind of intimidation and repression against activists and their families has been going on for a long time, but the arrest of Jallal Zoughlami is an alarming escalation," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "Once again the Tunisian authorities have responded with repression and physical force against people who are simply trying to exercise one of the most fundamental human rights, the right to free speech."
On April 26, Ben Brik, whose writings have criticized the country's sharply deteriorating human rights situation, acceded to appeals from friends and supporters to end his 24-day hunger strike. Throughout the day, however, police prevented foreign journalists and Tunisian supporters, including medical doctors, from visiting him at his home. In the confrontation the authorities beat and detained activists Ali Ben Salem, Sihem Ben Sedrine, Jallal Zoughlami, and al-Taieb No'man. Ben Salem, the 70-year-old treasurer of the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT), National Council for Civil Liberties in Tunisia, a human rights monitoring group which still lacks legal status, was subsequently taken away and left in great pain in a wooded area on the outskirts of Tunis. He remains in the hospital where he is receiving treatment for injuries sustained to his back and legs.
Ben Sedrine, a member of the CNLT, who suffered injuries to her shoulder and one eye, and No'man, a student, were taken to al Manar police station for questioning and possible legal proceedings, and released later in the day. Zoughlami, who may have sustained a broken nose, was also taken to the police station but later transferred to Tunis Civil prison. He has not been visited by his lawyer and is due to appear in court tomorrow charged with "unauthorized gathering in a public place," "violence against law-enforcement officials," and "inciting people to break the law." As a result of these events Ben Brik has resumed his hunger strike.
"These charges are preposterous. Zoughlami is being victimized largely because he intervened to stop police from beating up and abducting a 70-year-old man," Amnesty International said. "This relentless persecution of Taoufiq Ben Brik and his colleagues also stems from the fact that the CNLT continues to tell the truth about the dreadful situation in Tunisia. The fact that the Tunisian government continues to block NGO's and foreign web sites and that the Tunisian media has remained entirely mute about this whole affair speaks volumes about the state of free expression in the country today," Amnesty International added.
On the evening prior to his brother's arrest, Ben Brik's wife, Azza, and a group of lawyers were also assaulted and prevented from visiting Ben Brik in the hospital. They include Bar Council member Radhia Nasraoui; Chawki Tabib, Secretay General of the Association Tunisienne des Jeunes Avocats (ATJA), Tunisian Association of Young Lawyers; ATJA Secretary General Mohamed Salah Chatti; former Bar Council Secretary General Jamaleddine Bida; LTDH board member Fadhel Ghedamsi, Mourad Belbich and Ayachi Hammami. Today lawyers throughout Tunisia are observing a one-day strike called for by the Bar Council to protest the assault on their colleagues.
On Wednesday some thirty Tunisian police also turned back a visiting five-person French journalist delegation headed by Robert Menard and Virginie Lecussol of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. According to Menard, they too were assaulted by the police, though not injured, and their materials, including cameras, were seized and destroyed.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also called for full and impartial investigations into the beating and ill-treatment of the journalists, activists and their relatives, and urged that those found responsible be brought to justice.
Background
Taoufiq Ben Brik began his hunger strike on April 3 to protest the government's confiscation of his passport since April 1999, repeated government harassment of his family, and intimidation of Tunisian media from publishing his work. On April 10, he was arraigned in court on charges of "spreading false information and defaming the authorities." These charges, which carry a penalty of up to nine years imprisonment, were in response to a January article in La Tribune, a Swiss daily, on police harassment of Ben Sedrine, and to a review in another Swiss newspaper in February of Notre Ami, Ben Ali (Our Friend, Ben Ali), a book published last year in France that was critical of Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
On April 8, Police detained Fathi Chamkhi, President of the Rassemblement pour une Alternative Internationale de Developpement (RAID), Rally for an International Alternative for Development, together with RAID member Mohamed Chourabi and photocopy shop owner Iheb el Hani for possessing RAID and CNLT documents and charged them with "spreading false information liable to disturb public order, defamation of the authorities, inciting fellow-citizens to violate the laws of the country, and belonging to an unauthorized association." They remain in detention.
On April 10, the police forcibly evacuated and closed down Sihem Ben Sedrine's publishing house, where Taoufiq Ben Brik was conducting his hunger strike, on the grounds that a public meeting held there the previous day in the presence of foreign journalists, was considered to have been "a threat to public order."
On April 21, Tunisian police prevented the Tunisian section of Amnesty International from holding a public meeting on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. Security officers physically prevented Mahmoud Ben Romdhane, Chair of the organization's international board, and other AI members and guests, including foreign diplomats, from approaching the organization's office in Tunis. The former President of the AI Tunisian Section, lawyer Hachemi Jegham, was physically dragged out of the building. A similar incident had occurred on April 1.
On April 25, Ben Brik entered Mongi Slim hospital in Tunis after being advised by his doctors that he risked irreversible damage if he continued his fast. Complaining of police harassment at the hospital, he transferred to a private clinic on Tuesday. According to Ben Brik, plainclothes police subsequently entered his room in the clinic and abused him and his family. A confrontation ensued when friends from the Tunisian Human Rights League and the CNLT arrived to bring him home, resulting in injuries to a number of persons. Omer Mestiri, Ben Sedrine's husband and head of the CNLT, was abducted by unknown persons in an unmarked car and released some fifteen kilometers outside Tunis. One day earlier Mestiri had been knocked to the ground and his eyeglasses smashed after he complained to police conducting blatant surveillance of his private residence.
In May 1999, Ben Brik was injured when he was assaulted by three unidentified men wielding bicycle chains. The attack followed shortly after he had published an article abroad about the imprisonment of the vice-president of the Tunisian League for Human Rights. In January 1999, the windows of his wife's car were smashed following publication of his article discussing the case of some arrested students. Over the past several years Ben Brik and his family have been regularly subjected to menacing phone calls, cut phone lines, and police surveillance of their home.
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