Tunisia: Legal proceedings for libel against human rights defender Omar Mestiri

Re: Legal proceedings for libel against the human rights defender Omar Mestiri

Your Excellency

I wish to express my deepest concerns to you about information received regarding Omar Mestiri, human rights defender and editing director of the news website Kalima, who is in danger of being sentenced to 1-3 years imprisonment on the basis of legal proceedings for libel.

On 29 March last Omar Mestiri was interviewed in relation to this case by the Procurator of the Republic who based his interrogation on the source that enabled Omar Mestiri to learn about this reinstatement and not on the accuracy of the facts. Omar Mestiri refused to name his sources, relying on his right as a journalist not to have to divulge the information. His lawyers have questioned the legal basis for the proceedings as well as the regulation of the facts, knowing that the Kalima site is blocked in Tunisia and its publication could, as a result, have no impact in Tunisia.

I believe that these legal proceedings of which Omar Mestiri is victim are linked to his activities in the area of human rights.

I call on the Tunisian authorities to immediately:

1.Put an end to legal proceedings in the case of the human rights defender Omar Mestiri given that he is being prosecuted solely because of his peaceful activities in the area of human rights;

2.Put an end to arbitrary measures of which the news website Kalima is the target, by stopping its internet site being blocked in Tunisia.

3.Take steps to ensure that all the defenders of human rights in Tunisia can carry out their legitimate human rights activities free of any restriction or harassment.

I would like to remind you that the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by consensus by the General Assembly on 9 December 1998, recognises the legitimacy of the activities of human rights defenders and their right to carry out their activities without fear of reprisal. We wish to draw your attention particularly to article 6: “Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others: (a) To know, seek, obtain, receive and hold information about all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including having access to information as to how those rights and freedoms are given effect in domestic legislative, judicial or administrative systems; (b) As provided for in human rights and other applicable international instruments, freely to publish, impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms; (c) To study, discuss, form and hold opinions on the observance, both in law and in practice, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and, through these and other appropriate means, to draw public attention to those matters.”

Yours sincerely,