Human Rights Watch is writing to protest the detention by police of human rights attorney Samir Ben Amor on December 7. We regard this detention as an effort to intimidate Ben Amor and other members of the International Association in Support of Political Prisoners (Association Internationale de Soutien aux Prisonniers Politiques, AISPP), a five-year-old independent, Tunis-based human rights organization.
At about 9 a.m. that day, three plainclothes police visited the Tunis law office of Ben Amor and asked that he accompany them to the police station in Sidi Béchir, the Tunis neighborhood in which his parents reside. He refused on the grounds that they lacked a written summons as required by the law. The policemen then left.
At about 10 a.m., Ben Amor left his office and began walking down on al-Jazira Street. Three plainclothes policemen intercepted him and directed him into a waiting vehicle. The men used no force because Ben Amor made no effort to resist. He later told Human Rights Watch he did not resist because he felt he had no choice but to go along.
The plainclothesmen transported Ben Amor to the Sidi Béchir police station. There, the station commander informed him that Ben Amor had been holding meetings in his office. The commander did not specify to Ben Amor which meetings he was referring to, but stated that Ben Amor’s activities on behalf of the AISPP were illegal, since the AISPP was an “unrecognized” association. Tunisia’s Law on Associations provides prison terms and fines for persons who conduct activities on behalf of an “unrecognized” association.
Ben Amor replied that he considered the AISPP a legal organization since under the law, an association obtains tacit legalization if it submits its founding papers to the interior ministry and gets no formal refusal within ninety days, as happened with the AISPP in 2002 – 2003.
According to Ben Amor, the police commander replied that this is a matter for the courts to decide, but that he merely wished to warn Ben Amor to cease holding meetings in his office and to stop his activities on behalf of the AISPP. The police presented Ben Amor a statement for signature describing the conversation. He refused to sign it and left the station.
In a December 11 e-mail, Tunisian official sources confirmed to Human Rights Watch the reason for the summons but denied that the police had taken Ben Amor by force:
Mr Ben Amor was never "taken" to any police station much less "kidnapped". He was simply asked to come the police station to be told that the so-called Association Internationale de Soutien aux Prisonniers Politiques is not a legal association. He had accepted to come and did come on his own volition. It all took place in normal circumstances. He left after the notification.
Human Rights Watch believes that contrary to this statement, the detention of Ben Amor appears to have been illegal and conducted with an implicit threat of force. Ben Amor had just one hour earlier told plainclothes police he would not obey their request to go to the station without the legally required written summons. Nevertheless, agents confronted him on the street an hour later and told him to get into a vehicle with them. He “accepted to come” only in the sense that he had reason to believe that the agents would use force if he disobeyed. At no time did they show a written summons that would authorize his detention.
Second, regarding the substance of his summons, we believe that the AISPP has every right to operate as a human rights organization and that the authorities’ refusal to consider it legal is nothing more than an effort to silence persons who document and expose human rights conditions in Tunisia. It speaks volumes that among the reasons authorities gave for refusing legal recognition to the AISPP during the appeal of their refusal was the fact that its name implied the existence of political prisoners in Tunisia.
Moreover, Mr. Ben Amor has every right to pursue his peaceful work for the AISPP or any other human rights cause, including by hosting meetings in his office.
The authorities’ efforts to intimidate Mr. Ben Amor because of his human rights activity, and through him, other human rights defenders are an interference in their right to freedom of expression and of association, as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Tunisia has ratified. Tunisia’s Constitution guarantees these rights in Article 8.
We therefore urge your government to cease all measures designed to hamper the human rights activities of the AISPP and its members. We are also concerned that the police carried out Mr. Ben Amor’s detention on December 7 in an illegal manner and welcome any information you provide to demonstrate it was carried out in conformity with the law.
We thank you for your consideration and welcome your response.
Sincerely yours,
/s/
Sarah Leah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa division
Cc: Ambassador Mohamed Nejib Hachana, Embassy of Tunisia, Washington, DC
