What’s At Stake?

Release Mohamed Abbou, Jailed Human Rights Lawyer in Tunisia

Human Rights First is supporting the March 1, 2007 International Day for the Release of Mohamed Abbou. On this day, in Tunisia and all over the world, actions will be taken and activities will be organized to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Mohamed Abbou.

Mohamed Abbou’s imprisonment is emblematic of the methods used by the government to silence human rights activists in Tunisia and to prevent them from carrying out their activities.

Mohamed Abbou is a lawyer who has devoted his legal practice to defending on a pro bono basis those who are being persecuted for peacefully expressing their opinions.  He was formerly the director of the Association of Young Lawyers of Tunisia and is a member of the International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners (AISPP) and the National Committee for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT), an independent human rights organization whose activists are frequently harassed and threatened by the police and government officials.

After being sentenced to three and a half years in prison following an unfair trial in April 2005, Mohammed Abbou was imprisoned in Kef, a town that is more than 170 kilometers (100 miles) from his family home in Tunis. This is in itself a punitive measure that makes it difficult for his family to visit him. In addition, in Kef he is held in a cell with common criminals who continuously harass him, apparently at the prison authorities’ instigation. According to family members who have visited him in prison, he has been kicked and punched by prison guards and denied medical attention and access to books. The prison authorities have disrupted visits by his family members, including his wife and young daughter.

On March 11, 2006, in response to the harsh treatment, harassment and his unfair imprisonment, Abbou went on hunger strike for several weeks, which led to a serious deterioration in his heath.

Mohamed Abbou’s wife, Samia Abbou, has become increasingly outspoken in leading appeals for her husband’s release and in publicly denouncing the harsh treatment he is enduring in prison. She regularly organizes, with the support of Tunisian human rights groups, protests outside the prison in Kef and recently went on hunger strike. As a result of her struggle, Ms. Abbou is persistently harassed by the security forces. For example, on December 7, 2006, Ms. Abbou and three prominent human rights activists who were accompanying her were violently assaulted by a group of men in plain clothes while the police looked on without intervening. On that day, Ms. Abbou and her companions, human rights activist Moncef Marzouki, journalist Slim Boukhdir, and human rights lawyer Samir Ben Amar, were on their way to visit Mohamed Abbou when a group of about forty men attacked them near Kef prison and brutally beat the four of them right in front of several police officers who remained impassive.

Since coming to power in a bloodless coup in 1987, President Zine El Abdine Ben Ali has failed to deliver on initial pledges to promote democracy and the rule of law. His rule has become increasingly authoritarian. No serious political opposition is permitted to form. The ruling party controls the parliament and the President himself routinely wins re-election by gaining in excess of 90% of the vote in rigged elections. The judiciary is manipulated by the executive branch and independent judges have been removed from the bench. The press and broadcast media are tightly controlled, and the authorities make vigorous efforts to restrict internet communications and limit access to websites with independent news about Tunisia.

Human rights advocates have been a particular target of repression, with individual activists targeted for prosecution on fabricated charges and subject to arbitrary travel restrictions, physical assault by state agents and defamation campaigns in the media.  Human rights organizations have also been restricted. Independent groups that are critical of the government’s human rights practices, such as the CNLT and the Tunisian Center for Judicial Independence (CTIJ), have been refused legal recognition and their activities are habitually obstructed and restricted by the authorities. Even legally recognized groups, like the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), are also subject to severe judicial harassment and repeated interference in their activities including the blockage of foreign grants to the organization and the sabotage of its meetings.

Foreign human rights activists who visit Tunisia are also targeted by the security agents who habitually subject them to strong surveillance and follow them continually. On May 21, 2006, the Tunisian authorities expelled Yves Steiner, a member of the Swiss Section of Amnesty International, just a day after he criticized the government’s human rights practices.

Mohamed Abbou’s detention was carried out in a manner that violated procedural safeguards and Tunisia’s obligations under international law. He was abducted from the street in Tunis on March 1, 2005. The next day he appeared before a judge on a warrant that was backdated to September 2004. As if to show contempt for procedure, the warrant was actually dated September 31, 2004, a date that does not exist on the calendar. Nonetheless, his detention was upheld by the judge.

His lawyers were not permitted to see him prior to his appearance before the judge, and police apparently assaulted lawyers who came to the court house to seek to defend Mr. Abbou.

In the week prior to the trial a second charge was added to the indictment, relating to a complaint that Mr. Abbou had assaulted another lawyer during an argument in 2002. Mr. Abbou was not given enough time to prepare a defense to this new charge, and the evidence against him was not examined by his lawyers. He and his defense team were not given an adequate opportunity to rebut the charges against him. The last-minute imposition of this second charge on the basis of an unsubstantiated allegation is a clear violation of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which upholds the right to a fair trial. 

The original prosecution on the basis of his statements about torture in Tunisia is a violation of his right to freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 19 of the ICCPR and by the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, which reminds States of their obligations to ensure that human rights defenders have the basic rights and freedoms they require to exercise the right to promote and protect human rights.

In November 2005 the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Mohammed Abbou has been subjected to arbitrary detention in violation of Tunisia’s obligations as a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/Abbou4/explanation