Human Rights Watch today urged Tunisian authorities to immediately release from prison Hamma Hammami, spokesperson of the Tunisian Communist Workers party, and party members Abdeljabbar Maddouri and Samir Taâmallah. On March 30, the Tunis Appeals Court upheld their convictions by a trial court that denied the defendants their right to present a defense against the charges they faced
These three men are in prison solely for their political beliefs and nonviolent political activities,” said Hanny Megally, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. “They should never have been charged and tried in the first place.”
After a hearing on March 30, the Appeals Court upheld the conviction of the defendants on charges that included membership in the banned Tunisian Communist Workers Party (Parti Communiste des Ouvriers Tunisiens, PCOT), distributing leaflets and spreading “false information” capable of “disturbing the public order,” and inciting people to violate the laws of the country. Nevertheless, the Appeals Court reduced the original prison sentences against the three, giving Hammami three years and two months, Taâmallah twenty-one months, and Maddouri twenty-one months plus an additional two years on a contempt-of-court charge.
Human Rights Watch sent observers to the original 1999 trial, at which the Tunis Court of First Instance convicted the three men in absentia. All eighteen of their codefendants were convicted and all but one imprisoned. On February 2, 2002, the three voluntarily emerged from hiding to challenge their convictions, only to have them confirmed in a hearing that same day in which the defendants were denied their rights to prepare a defense and contest the evidence against them. Before the hearing had begun, policemen entered the courtroom and seized and removed the three defendants. This measure prompted a protest walkout by the entire defense team. The defendants were later escorted in a disheveled state to a different courtroom, where they stated that police had beaten them.
Even though Hammami, Maddouri, and Taâmallah were entitled by Tunisian law to a new trial since they were absent from their first trial, no genuine hearing took place at the February 2 session. Presiding judge Mustapha Kaâbachi simply announced their conviction on the same charges for which they had been convicted in absentia in 1999. He re-imposed long prison sentences on the three men, to be served immediately, and gave Maddouri an additional two-year term for comments he allegedly made that day that were ruled as insulting to the court. Maddouri had no opportunity to answer to the new charge and was not present when the judge convicted and sentenced him for it.
According to Ridha Khemakhem, a justice ministry official interviewed by Human Rights Watch on March 7, the defendants did not speak at their February 2 hearing because they had refused to do so. But this account was rejected by numerous Tunisian lawyers and international observers who had been present that day. They stated that the judge gave the defendants no opportunity to contest the earlier conviction, and did not even fulfill the formal requirement of confirming their identities at the outset.
Human Rights Watch observed the opening of the appeals court hearing on March 9, at which presiding judge Tahar Sliti agreed to adjourn the case until March 30 but rejected defense motions to free the defendants pending a definitive ruling in their case.
While some international observers were permitted to attend the March 9 and March 30 appeals hearings, numerous others were forbidden access to the court on both occasions. Police also barred without explanation access to some relatives of the defendants, many of their supporters, and members of the public.
In addition, since the imprisonment of the defendants on February 2, their lawyers have encountered repeated obstacles to meeting with them in order to prepare their defense. Radhia Nasraoui, a lawyer and Hammami’s wife, stated that on April 1 the Appeals Court refused to authorize her to visit Hammami on the grounds that the trial had concluded. In fact, Hammami and his co-defendants must still decide whether to petition the Court of Cassation for an annulment of the verdict.
Hammami, Taâmallah, and Maddouri all admitted to the court on March 30 their membership in the PCOT, but claimed they were being tried merely for exercising their political rights. Tolerated in the late 1980s but never legalized, the small leftist party has been systematically persecuted during the past decade. Its members have been imprisoned repeatedly on charges that are commonly used in Tunisia to repress nonviolent political dissent, including those that were confirmed by the Appeals Court in the case of Hammami, Taâmallah, and Maddouri on March 30.
The written verdict in the February 2 trial explained that conviction on the charge of spreading “false information” capable of “disturbing the public order” was warranted by statements found in PCOT tracts such as: “the repressive regime does all it can to prevent the mobilization of the people so that it will remain ignorant,” and “the victims of capitalist exploitation, repression and corruption, today constitute the majority of society.”
