OPEN LETTER

For the attention of:

Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the European Union

The High Representative of the European Union for the CFSP, Javier Solana

Commissioner Christopher Patten

Dear Ministers, High Representative, Commisioner

The European Union-Tunisia Association Council will meet on the 29^th and 30^th September, 2003.

It’s fitting to recall that the Association Agreement, which was signed on 17^th July, 1995, by the European Community and the Member States of the European Union on the one side and the Republic of Tunisia on the other, and which entered into force on 1^st March 1998, contains a human rights clause legally binding the parties (article 2). It stipulates formally that relations between the parties, and all provisions of the Agreement itself, are based on respect for human rights and democratic principles ; it inspires their domestic and foreign policies and constitutes an essential element of the Agreement.

The importance of this clause was reiterated by the Commission in its communication of 8^th May, 2001, concerning the role of the European Union in promoting human rights and democratisation in non-EU countries, as well as by the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of 25^th June, 2001. More recently, on 11^th March, 2003, the Commission published a communication on « Wider Europe  - Neighbourhood :  A New Framework for Relations With our Eastern and Southern Neighbours»[1], which proposes ways of strengthening relations with neighbouring countries, including Southern Mediterranean countries. In particular, the communication anticipates the establishment of national action plans with clear and precise objectives and performance criteria, including implementing international instruments in the area of human rights.

Finally, on 21^st May, 2003, the Commission published a communication for the Council and the European Parliament on «Reinvigorating EU actions on Human Rights and democratisation with Mediterranean Partners - Strategic Guidelines » (communication on the Mediterranean)[2]. In this document, the Commission makes 10 concrete recommendations detailing what the EU could do to improve the human rights situation in countries in the Mediterranean Basin, notably the systematic inclusion by the EU of human rights issues in all institutional dialogues, in particular at the Association Councils, as well as the development of specific national human rights action plans.

On the occasion of this next Association Council, FIDH, OMCT and EMHRN can only deplore the refusal of the Tunisian authorities to implement the commitments it has undertaken with regard to the international community and the European Union.

Once again, we wish to draw your attention to the serious situation regarding human rights and democracy in Tunisia. Indeed, five and a half years after the EU-Tunisia Association Agreement came into effect, there has been no improvement in the situation - far from it, and this despite the declaration and the promises made by President Ben Ali in his speech of 7^th November, 2001.

1. FIDH,  OMCT and the EMHRN are particularly worried about the recent amendments to the Tunisian Constitution, the practical effect of which is to keep alive the presidency in Tunisia at the elections in November, 2004, by jeopardizing the democratisation of political institutions.

2. Today, nearly 700 political prisoners are still being held in Tunisan prisons. Tunisian prisoners, and especially prisoners of conscience, are still subject to inhuman and degrading treatment and are often deprived of vital health care. The case of M. Habib Raddadi, a political prisoner serving a 17 year sentence who recently died in prison is a recent tragic illustration of these facts. In addition there is the solitary confinement in which 37 political prisoners are being held, some for more than 12 years now, in flagrant violation of the international convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Prisoners who have been released are continually harassed and have to present themselves at police stations on a regular basis (once a week, daily in some cases). Moreover, these people are forbidden to carry out any professional activity, be it in the public or private sector. More than a thousand people and those close to them are subject to such harassment and hassle.

3. We are also very concerned about the serious attacks on freedom of association and freedom of expression, and about the persecution of human rights defenders, lawyers and magistrates. Freedom of association is still widely jeopardized by bureaucracy and the fact that demands for authorisation are never granted. Amongst the 7000 officially listed associations, less than a dozen are truly independent ; meanwhile, other associations, including le Conseil national des libertés en Tunisie (national Council for liberties in Tunisia), l’Association internationale de soutien aux prisonniers politiques (international Association for the support of political prisoners), l’Association de lutte contre la torture (Association for the fight against torture), le Centre tunisien pour l’indépendance de la justice et des avocats (Tunisian Centre for the independence of the judiciary), le Rassemblement pour une alternative internationale de développement (Movement for an international development alternative), la Ligue des écrivains tunisiens libres (League of free Tunisian writers) are still awaiting the authorisation that would permit them to operate completely legally.

The Tunisian government recently believed it had found a skilful way of jeopardizing the smooth running of projects financed by the EIDHR[3]. From now on, the Tunisian authorities mean to impose on all associations the demand that they be authorised before receiving funds from foreign backers such as the European Commission. The basis for doing so is the misinterpretation of a text from 1923 which is normally only concerned with public fundraising in Tunisia. This administrative step is creating a dangerous precedent and constitutes a new development in the repression of autonomous associative activities.

Freedom of expression has worsened noticeably over the past few months. Between 5^th and 9^th February, 2003, 17 young people aged between 18 and 22 (mostly high school students) were arrested in Zarzis for having visited Internet sites banned in Tunisia. They were accused of carrying out subversive activities through the Internet and of having visited the banned site of the Islamic Nahda party! Six of them are still being detained. These arrests came several months after M. Zouhayr Yahyaoui, founder and principal animator of the site TUNeZINE, was sentenced to two years in prison with no remission. On 26^th June, 2003, a new provision of the electoral code also forbids any Tunisian from expressing himself through foreign audiovisual media in favour of or against a candidate in the presidential elections and this during the electoral campaign. Any breach of this « law » will incur a fine of 20.000€, or in the case of failure to pay, a two-year prison sentence with no reductions.

4. All this comes in addition to the recurrent attacks on freedom of expression and information in line with the general framework of censure, persecution and harassment of people who dare to denounce human rights violations in Tunisia and express a critical opinion against authority. Human rights defenders in Tunisia, lawyers, magistrates and their families are subject to ever-increasing harassment  and represseion. Incidences of physical aggression against opponents, human rights defenders, lawyers and magistrates have multiplied; the President of the Bar Association (bâtonnier de l’Ordre des Avocats) Me Béchir Essid , members of the Bar Association Council (Conseil de l’Ordre des Avocats) Me Raouf Ayadi and Me Mohamed Jmour and former judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, have been dismissed from office and forbidden to leave Tunisia for daring to denounce the lack of independence of the Tunisian  judiciary. The fact that the authorities are resorting to violence was illustrated recently with physical attacks on the general secretary of the UDU (Unionist Democratic Union/Union démocratique unioniste), Abderrahmane Tlili, Me Saida Akremi, Me Radhia Nassraoui as well as on  M. Mouldi Jendoubi, a human rights defender and the general secretary of the Jendouba regional union of the Tunisian General Union of Labour (centrale syndicale tunisienne/UGTT).

The situation is even more worrying because physical abuse and torture is still systematically practised when people taken in for questioning are interrogated and detained.

The situation of the journalist  Abdallah Zouari, who has been given another prison sentence after completing 11 years’ detention for non-respect of an - illegally imposed - periodic penalty payment to the administrative authorities,  bears witness to how relentless the authorities are. At the same time, the number of passports  being refused and bans on leaving the country are in the hundreds. Mohamed Ali Bedoui, the brother of Dr Moncef Marzouki, was forbidden from leaving the country despite having obtained a passport and a visa for Europe. Moreover the arbitrariness of these measures is illustrated by the refusal of the authorities to renew the passport of Kamel Jendoubi, president of the Committee for the Respect of Liberties and Human Rights in Tunisia (Comité pour le respect des libertés et des droits de l’homme en Tunisie/CRLDHT), and vice-president of the EMHRN.

5. Once again, international observers at recent hearings of the trial against the Bar Association (Ordre des Avocats), the LTDH and tens of political trials have seen that Tunisian justice is being utilized to represss all dissenting voices. The recent refusal by the Tunisian government to set up a MEDA programme for legal reform and its insistence on dedicating the 25 million proivided by the European Union to material renovations and improving infrastructure is in line with the Tunisian authorities’ desire to hang on to their monopoly and keep a firm hold over the workings of Tunisian justice.

6. As concerns the situation of women, FIDH, OMCT and EMHRN would like to point out that this is by no means as exemplary as the authorities state. Despite legal advances, essentially since 1956, discrimination against women continues. Legal decisions are still based on the rules of the  « sharia » in matters of succession, tutelage or status within the family. The few associations and persons such as ATFD (Tunisian Association of Democratic Women) and LTDH who dare to contradict the official line that there are no problems with the situation of women in Tunisia are subject to pressure, continual harassment and defamation campaigns.

Recommendations

·        Our organisations request that you begin implementing the proposals contained in the communication on the Mediterranean at the Association Council, in particular the proposals concerning the institutionalisation, systematisation and consolidation of the political dialogue on human rights and the establishment of a human rights sub-committee within the framework of the Association Agreement. We also ask that you initiate discussions on the subject of developing and implementing a human rights action plan.

·        As concerns the current negotiations on the MEDA-Justice programme, we call upon you to exercise extreme vigilence. It’s very important that the budget allocated for this programme is not used merely to finance material improvements and infrastructure but to fund real legal reform in line with the proposals in the Commission’s communication on the Mediterranean, and especially to help integrate good governance, human rights and democracy in the MEDA programmes and national action plans. Moreover, the EU must ensure that this programme includes training for lawyers and magistrates in collaboration with both the Tunisian Bar Association (Ordre des Avocats Tunisien) and with Bar and magistracy representatives from other European countries.

·        Our organisations strongly recommend that you ask the Tunisian government to respect its international human rights commitments, including its commitments under the heading of the Association Agreement. In particular, this is a question of:

- promising to reform the legal and administrative frameworks relating to the status of NGOs, as mentioned in the Communication on the Mediterranean, ending all harassment of human rights defenders and women, authorising all independent human rights organisations to operate freely in line with the UN Declaration on human rights defenders, and promising not to hold up funding from the Commission within the framework of projects financed by the EIDHR ;

- strengthening guarantees for the independence of the judiciary and the legal system in line with international norms on the conditions for fair trial, favouring dispassionate justice, ending all attacks on the rights of the defence (sentences handed down without hearing from the defence or the defendant ; obstructing civil complaints; denial of the principle of the authority of the thing judged; refusal to register certain complaints made by opponents…) as well as ending the persecution of lawyers in any capacity (legal harassment of the Bar, aggression towards members of the Bar Association Council and the president of the Bar, police sitting in on their studies, burglary of their offices by the political police…) and authorising visits of United Nations special rapporteurs, be it on independence of the judiciary or torture;

- lifting all restrictions on freedom of expression, communication and information as well as the free dissemination of both foreign and Tunisian periodicals; putting an end to all forms of censorship, direct or indirect, and removing the pressures restricting the freedom of journalists and the liberty to edit newspapers freely ; repealing laws authorising the interception of e-mail and Internet censorship; repealing the law of 26^th June, 2003 muzzling foreign audiovisual media and removing all the provisions of the penal code sanctioning crimes of opinion; no longer putting people in prison for having exercised  their right to freedom of expression and opinion;

- ending the long-term solitary confinement of political detainees by promulgating a general amnesty for victims of repression and reestablishing their civil and political rights ;

- guaranteeing the free movement of all persons who have been arbitrarily denied a passport or been forbidden to travel freely, especially human rights defenders ;

- implementing effectively the international convention against torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. In this respect, the Tunisian State must establish a credible and transparent system responsible for carrying out investigations into abuse and ensuring that the authors of human rights violations are identified and brought to justice ;

- following up complaints of violence and attacks on honour made by human rights defenders ;

- promoting, beyond the partisan instrumentalisation of the women’s rights issue, an effective policy on the fight against all forms of discrimination against women in line with the dispositions of the international instruments to which Tunisia has subscribed;

Moreover, in the current regional and international context, the issue of the fight against terrorism, the legitimacy of which has not been questioned, is being used opportunistically as an excuse not to move forwards in a way which largely goes beyond the necessities of this fight. Deliberately ignoring the deep-rooted causes responsible for the tragic drift towards terrorism, which our organisations have continually dencounced, the Tunisian government is one of those regimes exploiting the theme of the fight against terrorism and using a most worrying hotchpotch of activities in order to justify systematic attacks on human rights and anti-democratic practices. Convinced that it is the duty of States to safeguard property and persons, we believe that respect for universal human rights norms must remain a mjor imperative in all circumstances.

Finally, we draw your attention to the hope which, as a supplement to implementing article 2, the two aforementioned communications have sparked off for the Mediterranean region at the regional and national level. It is also crucial for the credibility of the EU that this Asssociation Council meeting marks the implementation of commitments made and leads to concrete results as regards improving the human rights situation in Tunisia.