Human Rights Watch said today that Hamma Hammami is unjustly imprisoned in Tunisia for exercising his rights to peaceful political expression and activities, and should be released immediately and unconditionally. The continuing harassment by police of his wife, the outspoken human rights lawyer Radhia Nasraoui, and their daughters must stop. On June 26, Nasraoui launched an open-ended hunger strike calling for the release of her husband and an end to police harassment of the family.
Hammami is the spokesperson of the Tunisian Communist Workers Party (parti communiste des ouvriers tunisiens, PCOT), a party that the government has refused to legalize. He has been in the April 9 Prison in Tunis since February 2, when he emerged from hiding to challenge his conviction in absentia at a 1999 political trial. At that trial, all twenty-one defendants, including Hammami and two others in hiding, had been convicted and all but one sentenced to prison terms.
Human Rights Watch urged the release of the other two defendants from that trial who are also currently in prison, Samir Taamallah and Abdeljabbar Maddouri, as well as Amar Amroussiya, another PCOT member who was jailed on February 2.
Hammami is serving a sentence of three years and two months on charges that include membership in a banned organization (the PCOT), distributing leaflets and spreading "false information" capable of "disturbing the public order," and inciting people to violate the laws of the country. He merits support not only as a person imprisoned solely for his peaceful beliefs and activities but also as a human rights defender. During the many years he spent in various Tunisian prisons since the 1970s, and having undergone various forms of torture at the hands of his captors, Hammami took pains to communicate information about prison conditions and the methods of torture practiced on detainees. Hammami persisted in this monitoring effort at a time when far fewer Tunisians dared to engage in this kind of monitoring activity.
In recent years, Radhia Nasraoui and her daughters have been subjected to obtrusive and intimidating police surveillance, suspicious break-ins at their home and at her law office, as well as travel restrictions at various times. In Tunisia, this sort of harassment is the lot of many human rights activists and their families. It is a stain on the reputation of a government that never ceases to proclaim its respect for human rights.
