Tunisia

Active Cases

Tunisia: Arrest and restricted movement of human rights defenders

Front Line is deeply concerned following reports of the arrest and restricted movement of human rights defenders Zakia Dhifaoui, member of the Kairouan section of the Ligue tunisienne des droits de l'Homme (Tunisian League of Human Rights) (LTDH); Ali Ben Salem, president of the Bizerte section of the LTDH; Mohamed Ben Saïd, member of the Bizerte section of the LTDH; Othman Jmili and Faouzi Sadkaoui of the Association internationale de soutien aux prisonniers politiques en Tunisie (International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners in Tunisia) (AISPP).  

• arrest
• Front Line
• human rights
• Human Rights Defenders
• restricted movement
• Tunisia

• Tunisia

There is continued repression of human rights defenders, with those highlighting human rights abuses by the authorities being subject to harassment, intimidation, physical assault, arbitrary arrests and detentions, ill-treatment while in custody, stigmatisation, professional sanctions and restrictions on freedom of movement. Freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of assembly are severely limited and there have been attacks on the independence of the judiciary. In particular, human rights organisations and their members, journalists and lawyers are targeted.

According to the report of the UN SRSG on the situation of human rights defenders, the human rights community in Tunisia is very active and comprises numerous human rights organisations, student activists and trade unions in addition to professional organizations of journalists, lawyers and magistrates. The Tunisian authorities regularly block or deny legal recognition to independent human rights organizations. Frequently, despite an organisation having followed the correct procedures, its application for legal recognition is not accepted. This results in a large number of independent human rights organizations operating without official recognition and exposes defenders to criminal sanctions for membership of an illegal organization. An additional obstacle is the blocking of foreign funding under anti-terrorist legislation, even where both donors and beneficiaries are recognised transparent entities known for their human rights activities. Moreover, certain government sponsored organisations seek to discredit the work of independent human rights organisations which are critical of the authorities. Freedom of assembly is severely limited, with the systematic prevention of meetings by police obstruction and defenders being subjected to constant surveillance. In particular, there were repeated attacks against human rights organisations and their members in the run up to the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005. Human rights defenders have been prevented from leaving the country to participate in international conferences and foreign activists have been expelled from the country. Freedom of expression is also severely curtailed and the publication of information found to be disruptive of public order or defamatory is a criminal offence which can result in up to 3 years’ imprisonment. This legislation has been used to imprison those publishing articles critical of the Tunisian authorities.