His Excellency Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali
President
Republic of Tunisia
c/o His Excellency The Ambassador to London

Vienna, 31 May 2000

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and journalists, is deeply concerned at the Tunisian government’s readiness to extend retribution to family members of journalists, and its tolerance of the climate of hate which is encouraging others to attack the media.

On 2 May, the Tunisian journalist, Noureddine Aouididi, former editor-in-chief of the Al-Akhbar newspaper, commenced a hunger strike in protest at the cruel and unnecessary treatment of his family members in Tunisia. Aouididi is now on his 29th day without food and is suffering a grave deterioration in his health. He is displaying all the signs of under nourishment, including, exhaustion, lack of concentration, severe headaches and an increased heart rate. Since the start of his hunger strike he has lost ten kilograms in weight.

We understand that Aouididi has gone on hunger strike in order to protest the failure of the government to release his sister, Radhia Aouididi, from imprisonment and to allow her a passport so that she may join her husband in France. He is also seeking passports for other members of his family who have suffered mistreatment at the hands of the government.

Resident in the United Kingdom since 1994, Aouididi fled Tunisia to escape the government’s anger at articles critical of the deterioration of the human rights situation in Tunisia. In 1997, he was granted asylum in the UK. Four years after his exile in the UK, he was sentenced by the Tunisian courts, in absentia, to life imprisonment and five year’s administrative control.

Since his flight from Tunisia, the family of Aouididi have been punished for his articles. His father has been maltreated by the Tunisian police and his brother tortured and imprisoned for five and a half months. In November 1996, his sister Radhia was arrested and sentenced in 1998 to three and a half years in prison and five years of administrative control.

In the belief of IPI, the harassment and intimidation of journalist’s families is a callous attempt to seek retribution for the alleged “wrongdoings” of the journalist. Moreover, the persecution of journalists and their families is creating a climate of hate which is actively encouraging others to come forward and vent their anger at the media.

A glaring example of the climate of hate may be seen in the case of Ben Fadhel, former editor of the Arabic edition of Le Monde. On 23 May, Fadhel was shot by two unknown assailants; he suffered wounds to his shoulder, neck and chest. During the attack, one of the assailants, in an allusion to his articles, called him a “traitor dog”. The attack occurred three days after the publication of an article by Fadhel criticising the government’s treatment of Taoufik Ben Brik, the journalist who carried out a 43 day hunger strike to protest at the parlous state of press freedom in Tunisia.

IPI regards your government’s attitude towards the media to be intolerable. No democratic society can expect to thrive without objective and informed criticism of the government processes. Furthermore, IPI reminds Your Excellency that according to article 13 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his own country”.

In addition, Article 19 of the aforementioned Declaration states, “every person has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”. IPI urges you to adhere to these principles and allow journalists to carry on with their profession free of intimidation.

Therefore, in view of the harassment of Aouididi’s family, the imprisonment of his sister and the attempted murder of the journalist, Ben Fadhel, IPI calls upon you to release the sister of Noureddine Aouididi, and give her and the other members of his family a passport. Furthermore, we ask you to do everything within your power to ensure that the perpetrators of the attempted assassination of Ben Fadhel are brought to justice immediately.

We thank you for your attention.

Johann P. Fritz
Director