Freedom for Khemais Ksila - and freedom for all Tunisians

13/01/1999
Report

Tunisia, a tourist country or land of torture? This
question is asked by the President of the FIDH at a
time when the 11th anniversary of President Ben
Ali’s accession to power has just been celebrated, as
the Committee Against Torture acting under the
authority of the United Nations prepares to examine
the Tunisian situation.

Most tunisians, relieved to be freed from the
authoritarian and latterly deliquent regime of President
Bourghiba, have paradoxically considered the arrival of
the new head of the state as a breath of fresh air,
even though he was of military extraction and is a
former strong-armed Home Secretary.

The appeal of his speech containing various promises
linked to democracy and human rights had prompted
them to see the change as a possible opportunity for
liberalisation of the country. After a few rather
encouraging attempted reforms, one was soon brought
down to earth. President Ben Ali has progressively
institutionalised the restriction of civil liberties to
suppress any opposition and has used the fear of
fundamentalism to do so. Eleven years later, one has
to note that even if the rhetoric is the same, there is a
huge gap between the commendable ideas and the
reality of systematic repression against anyone
criticising the regime or expressing a different view.

Human rights campaigners are the first to be targeted
in such a way. Khémais Ksila, Vice President of the
Tunisian Human Rights League, can indeed testify that
this is the case as he has been in jail since
September 29th, 1997 and is currently serving a three
year imprisonment sentence after having been
convicted of libel against public order, diffusion of
false news susceptible to compromising public order
and incitement to break national laws. All Tunisian and
foreign observers who were at his trial agree that such
a condemnation was entirely unjust, based upon
political motives and only inflicted after Khémais Ksila
had publicly announced that he would go on a hunger
strike to denounce the harassment sustained by
himself and his family because of his involvment in the
defense of human rights. Since then, not only have the
Tunisian authorities remained insensitive to all
protests and requests for the release of Khémais Ksila
but they have also detained him in prison in appaling
conditions while threatening and inhumainly
persecuting his wife and children.
Many other
opponents or human rights campaigners have
experienced increasingly systematic and sophisticated
such methods of harassment : telephone bugging,
confiscation of passports, professional bullying,
destruction of cars, vandalizing of homes, libel
campaigns, numerous charges, threats to relatives
including children...
It is unacceptable that the Tunisian authorities use the
fundamentalist threat -a threat they paradoxically
pretend to have controlled-as a means to attack the
best ramparts against fundamentalism, campaigners
for the universal values of human rights. Similarly, the
infringement of public order or of the public image of
Tunisia does not come from someone like Khémais
Ksila who only intends to express his opinions
democratically, but rather from the authorities which
send people to prison arbitrarily and without a fair trial.

With such a repressive policy, the Tunisian state does
not demonstrate its force as it thinks but its weakness
as the isolated voice of a single opponent is enough to
destabilise it and to provoke such reactions out of
proportion. Only the immediate release of Khémais
Ksila , followed by other opening-up measures would
allow the inexorable process of discrediting generated
by such practice to stop. In the meantime, the time
has come to be no longer satisfied with the false talk
about human rights from the tunisian authorities but to
strongly denounce the reality of the serious violations
committed. It is urgent to break the wall of silence and
to end the disinformation of the public as well as the
passive complicity of the international community. The
international community-and France in particular- must
open its eyes and realise that the alleged constructive
dialogue has done nothing to prevent the continuous
destruction of civil liberties.
It has now become essential to use the existing
relations with Tunisia-the economic ones in particularto
demand significant improvements in regard to
human rights within the Euro-Mediterranean
agreements in particular.

One has to publicise the work of the Committee
Against Torture before which Tunisia will have to
account for the steps taken to apply the measures of
the International Convention Against Torture and other
Cruel, Inhumain and Degrading Treatments. After that,
it seems reasonable to expect that the dream of
Tunisia as an eternal land of happiness which is
promoted in advertising campaigns should not be
reserved only for tourists. It should belong above all to
the Tunisian people whose main dreams at the
moment are of liberties still to be won.

Patrick Baudouin

President of the FIDH

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