All News items from Tunisia

On 18 June 2008, Sihem Bensedrine and Omar Mestiri were stopped at the Tunisian-Algerian border while on their way to an event in Algeria to promote freedom of expression in the region. They were interrogated for approximately two and a half hours before being released. No reasons were given for their interrogation. Omar Mestiri is the chief editor of the online newspaper Kalima and Sihem Bensedrine is the founder and spokesperson of the Conseil national pour les libertés en Tunisie (CNLT) (National Council for Civil Liberties in Tunisia) and the Secretary-General for the Observatoire pour la Liberté de presse, d'édition et de création en Tunisie (OLPEC) (Observatory for the Freedom of the Press, Publication, and the Arts in Tunisia). On 7 February 2008, Sihem Bensedrine was awarded the 2008 Peace Prize by the Danish Peace Foundation.  

Since the 18 May 2007 the building housing the offices of the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT), has been surrounded by a large contingent of political police who are preventing the staff of the CNLT from getting into their offices. The CNLT has effectively been shut down following a joint Human Rights First and Front Line mission to Tunisia from 20-24 May 2007 to assess the human rights situation there.  

Front Line welcomes the decision to dismiss the case against the HRD Omar Mestiri after the plantiff retracted charges against him, following the trial which took place on 28 August 2007.  

Samia Abbou, wife of eminent lawyer and human rights defender, Mohammed Abbou, was subjected to a brutal assault on 7 December. She and three other leading Tunisian human rights defenders were attacked and beaten outside El Kef prison, near Tunis, by a group of about forty men in civilian clothing.

Samia Abbou traveled to El Kef to visit her imprisoned husband with human rights defenders; Moncef Marzouki, former president of the National Committee for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT) and the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH) Salim Boukhdhir, a well known Journalist and Samir ben Amor, founding member of the International Association for the Support of Political Prisoner. According to reports, police stopped the car in which they were traveling on a number of occasions throughout the journey to El Kef and were present outside the prison at the time of the assault.  

A group of over 20 human rights organisations released a joint press statement detailing the recent harassment of human rights defenders in Tunisia, which has increased significantly in the last weeks. Press Release

Over 20 human rights organizations condemned the increased repression against human rights defenders and lawyers on 23 May in Tunisia.

On 11 May 2006, head of the newly established independent Syndicate of Journalists, Lotfi Hajji, was detained and interrogated for four hours after he was accused of holding a secret meeting.

On 18 May 2006, Tunisian authorities prevented the family of recently deceased human rights defender, Adel Arfaoui, from entering the headquarters of the Tunisian League for Human Rights to attend a memorial ceremony in his honour.

Security forces attacked Yves Steiner, a member of the executive office of the Swiss Branch of Amnesty International, while he was attending the annual general meeting of the Amnesty International Tunisia Branch. He was detained and asked to leave Tunisia on 21 May 2006.  

5 March 2005

Front Line has condemned the violent repression of human rights defenders in Tunisia. On the 4th of March hundreds of police brutally assaulted peaceful human rights defenders and members of opposition political parties as they attempted to gather for a demonstration. Human rights lawyer Radhia Nasraoui (left) was badly beaten which resulted in a broken nose, damage to her arm and back, cuts and severe bruising. Her daughter who was also beaten required stitches to her head.

Following news of the Tunisian Government's invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to attend the UN World Summit on the Information Society in November, several protests took place in various parts of the country to protest against the decision. Tunisian human rights defenders called for Sharon to be prosecuted as a war criminal for the massacres of civilians. The violent repression on the 4th of March is part of a pattern of attacks on human rights defenders by the Tunisian authorities.  

17 November 2005 A press conference, on 16 November attended by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, at the Tunis headquarters of the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), in effect, became the first unofficial meeting of the Citizens Summit on Information Technology (CSIS) The Tunisian government has systematically blocked the alternative summit’s preparatory meetings and planned workshops and events in flagrant breach of the right to freedom of expression and association. In doing so, the Tunisian Government has demonstrated contempt for the Geneva Principles* and for their obligations under the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and international human rights law.

Leading representatives of International and Tunisian Civil Society committed themselves to continuing the struggle for the basic rights to freedom of expression and association in Tunisia in front of the audience of over 200 journalists, diplomats and NGO members. The Mayor of Geneva, echoing the statements of the President of Switzerland’s comment at the official World Summit, said that rights freedom of expression and assembly were universal and not the domain of one culture