Human Rights Defenders in Tunisia

President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to power in November 1987, deposing former President for Life, Habib Bourguiba. He declared a new era of human rights and respect for the rule of law, and proclaimed the “November principles,” aiming at the creation of “a free and democratic society and for a pluralistic state which respects human rights.” President Ben Ali’s initiative was broadly welcomed in Tunisia, especially by the political opposition and the growing local human rights community. The period between 1987–89 was one of legal reform. Political prisoners were freed and restrictions on political parties were lifted.

Two factors appear to have precipitated a pronounced negative shift in the government’s attitude to human rights. First, the ruling party discovered that the opposition was popular, especially the Islamic opposition of the An-Nahda (Renaissance) Party. In legislative elections in April 1989, An-Nahda candidates, running as independents because the party’s registration was delayed, polled as high as 30% in some urban areas.

Simultaneously, in neighboring Algeria, Islamists were fairing even better at the polls, with the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) gaining a majority in some municipal elections in June 1989. Throughout 1990 and 1991 tension between the FIS and the Algerian military intensified, resulting in increasing unrest, including street clashes and mass arrests. In parliamentary elections in Algeria in December 1991, the FIS won a majority in first round voting. Before the second round could be completed and a FIS government installed, the military staged a coup, imprisoning the FIS leaders and thousands of their supporters, sparking more than a decade of bloody conflict.

With the worsening Algerian crisis on his border, President Ben Ali used the threat of instability and of Islamist takeover to his own advantage. Even though Tunisia did not share Algeria’s violent history of a de-colonization war, nor its volatile ethnic mix, President Ben Ali seized an opportunity to discredit his government’s principal political opposition, seriously undermining the Tunisian human rights movement in the process.

The way the Tunisian government acted was particularly damaging to human rights in the region for two reasons. Firstly, it crushed an Islamic political movement that had stated, and begun to demonstrate, its commitment to the democratic process. Such movements have been rare in the Arab world in recent years, precisely because, when they have appeared they have been promptly suppressed by the authorities. This has had a polarizing affect, strengthening the position of extremists within the political Islamic movement who are prepared to use violence and extra-legal methods to reach their goals.

The government held a series of political trials in which it tried to fabricate evidence of An-Nahda involvement in violent plots. In 1991, for example, three men identified as An-Nahda supporters were tried and executed for an attack on a district office of the ruling party, the RCD, in Tunis in which a guard was killed. Without supporting evidence, the government alleged that attackers had tied up the guard with a rope and deliberately set him on fire after dousing him with kerosene. The defendants denied any involvement in the attack, but were convicted after an unfair trial on the basis of incriminating statements they claim to have been forced to make under torture. A much bigger trial was held in July and August 1992 in which hundreds of Islamist sympathizers were accused of involvement in an alleged coup plot. Again, the physical evidence for the alleged crime was flimsy and convictions were brought on the basis of incriminatory statements apparently obtained by use of torture and illegal coercion. International trial observers found many irregularities in the trial proceedings which fell short of international standards.

The Tunisian human rights movement, notably the Tunisian League for Human Rights, (LTDH), the largest and oldest local human rights group in the Arab world, was an irritant to the government as it sought to destroy peaceful political opposition by illegal methods.

Tunisia’s Western backers (notably France), and much of the Westernized liberal Tunisian elite, including parts of the local human rights movement, were prepared to overlook the lack of due process protections in the trials of An-Nahda supporters as a reasonable costs for keeping the Islamists at bay.

Secondly, though it abandoned the implementation of human rights reforms after 1991, and increased censorship and persecution of dissidents to unprecedented levels, the Tunisian government continued to voice its "commitment" to human rights. Tunisia was recognized by European governments and others for its “progress in human rights,” in part because of the contrast to Algeria’s violence. President Ben Ali’s approach was also assisted by Tunisia’s economy, which had the strongest annual growth of any North African economy through the nineties.

The Tunisian government’s actions in the early 1990s set a pattern for the region. For the Islamic movement, even more than the experience of Algeria, Tunisia drove home the message that playing by the democratic rule book would not result in Islamist opposition groups gaining access to a share of political power. The government’s response strengthened the hand of those who advocated political violence and contempt for the democratic process. Within the political Islamic movement, the cause of constitutional Islamism, a form of Islamism compatible with respect for human rights, was weakened.

The weapon the government chose to employ to undermine the human rights movement was primarily legislative. The climate in which the LTDH was operating had worsened since 1989. Gradually, coverage of LTDH statements and activities disappeared from the press. Attacks on the LTDH and its leaders began to appear in government-controlled media. Without access to media outlets of comparable impact, the LTDH was powerless to defend itself against these defamatory attacks. For example, government officials attacked the leadership of the LTDH as agents of foreign powers, because it looked for international support in its conflict with the government. Reports in the government-controlled press accused the LTDH of trying to exclude other Tunisians from involvement in human rights issues. With reference to the LTDH leaders, Prime Minister Hamed Karoui told the newspaper La Presse on June 3, 1992, “those who practice monopoly and exclusivity attack democracy.”

In 1992 the Tunisian government amended its law on associations, which first categorized certain groups, among them the LTDH, as “associations of a general nature.” It then imposed two special requirements on these groups. The new law prohibited individuals from occupying leadership positions in both political parties and non-governmental organizations, and secondly, created an enforceable legal right for an individual to join an association. The first provision was carefully crafted by the government to disrupt the LTDH leadership. From its inception in 1975, the LTDH had developed as a coalition of competing political trends and parties in Tunisia, held in place by a careful balancing of representatives of each trend on the executive board. In theory, ideological opponents left their partisan interests at the door to cooperate in the shared interest of promoting human rights, and the LTDH’s impressive record prior to 1992 testified to the success of this approach in practice. However, representatives of different factions were highly conscious of the political balance of the executive board, and the government knew that forcing certain members of the board to give up their seats would lead to disruption.

The second measure, creating a legal right for any individual to join any association, would have facilitated the flooding of the LTDH with new members from the ruling political party. Rather than comply with these new conditions, the LTDH was forced to cease its activities in June 1992. The LTDH has never fully recovered from this blow.

Even after resuming its activities in 1993, under a new leadership, with a less confrontational approach to the government, its voice exposing government violations remained muted in Tunisia and virtually silent internationally. This was not because of any improvement in the human rights situation on the ground. Censorship, arbitrary detention and torture all continued to be widespread. In October 2000, the LTDH again elected an independent leadership, but the government responded by suspending its activities and ordering new elections. Its offices were closed, and members were prevented from holding meetings in private houses. Legal proceedings have been initiated against the new leadership.

Some individual activists, many of them former leaders of the LTDH, tried to continue their activism, but were arrested or officially persecuted for their activism. For example, lawyer Nejib Hosni, was imprisoned in June 1994 on fabricated charges, apparently in reprisal for his cooperation with international human rights organizations. He spent 30 months in prison, out of an eight year sentence. He was imprisoned again in December 2000 for “practicing his profession without a license,” and served a further five months in prison after his previous sentence was reactivated. He was again released by presidential order after an international campaign on his behalf. Human rights leaders like Moncef Marzouki, Siham Bensidrine and Radhia Nasraoui have been harassed, threatened, prosecuted and even physically assaulted. Their family members, even their children were threatened. Moncef Marzouki, a physician, was dismissed from his government job. He was sentenced to one year of imprisonment in December 2000 for “maintaining an unauthorized association.” The sentences was later converetd into a suspended one year term. Periodically human rights activists were denied permission to travel. Their connections to the outside world were severed. Their mail was stopped or subjected to close surveillance. Their telephone lines were cut or interfered with. They were followed by government agents, and their visitors were harassed by government agents.

Undeterred by this severe repression, human rights activists have continued to organize to defend basic freedoms. In December 1998, a group of experienced activists announced the formation of the National Council on Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT). Its application for registration under the law was rejected by the ministry of the interior in March 1999, but it continued to issue statements and to expose violations. This work was carried out at a heavy cost. In 1999 three co-founders of the CNLT were detained for periods ranging from a few days to several months: Omar Mestiri, Moncef Marzouki and Taoufik Ben Brik. In 2001, Siham Bensidrine, a publisher of children’s books, another CNLT activist, was detained for six weeks, and then beaten by government agents on August 17, 2001, after her release. All activists associated with the CNLT continue to be subjected to threats and harassment for their activities.

Today there are no legal, independent human rights organizations functioning in Tunisia. The LTDH remains suspended with its leaders facing prosecution and the CNLT has no legal status. Human rights activists continue to function in Tunisia only at enormous personal risk.