(PEN/IFEX) – The following is a 15 February 2006 Norwegian PEN press release: Leading members of CNLT questioned by authorities Norwegian PEN is shocked by the continued harassment of the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT) and several of its members by Tunisian authorities. The offices of CNLT continue to remain under tight […]
(PEN/IFEX) – The following is a 15 February 2006 Norwegian PEN press release:
Leading members of CNLT questioned by authorities
Norwegian PEN is shocked by the continued harassment of the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT) and several of its members by Tunisian authorities. The offices of CNLT continue to remain under tight surveillance and, on 4 February 2006, a police deployment closed off the square where their offices are located and stopped members of the group’s outreach committee from getting into the building to meet. This week, members of CNLT were also the target of questioning and harassment.
According to information received from CNLT, on the night of 9 February and during the day of 10 February, police agents stopped four leading members of CNLT, as well as others who tried to visit their offices:
– Abdelkader Ben Khemis, CNLT Secretary General, was stopped in front of his house in Monastir by agents and interrogated for three hours at the national security district offices. He was released at approximately 11:00 p.m. (local time) after copies of the “Kalima” newspaper were confiscated.
– Lotfi Hidouri, a member of the CNLT outreach committee and the “Kalima” Editorial Secretariat was intercepted at approximately 8:00 p.m. (local time) at a Publinet (Internet café) where he was in the middle of checking his e-mail. The state security agents took him in their car and proceeded to search his bag. They let him go after confiscating the latest issue of “Kalima”.
– Sami Nasr, a researcher at CNLT, was also stopped at approximately 8:30 p.m. by four police agents in civilian clothes as he approached his house. Police grabbed his bag and proceeded to search it.
– Mokhtar Arbaoui, a founding member of CNLT, was stopped as he left the CNLT office on the afternoon of 10 February by several agents in civilian clothes who forcibly pushed him into the elevator cage of a building, then proceeded to search him and manhandle him.
– The same day, at approximately 6:00 p.m., Samia Abbou, wife of Mohamed Abbou, and Aymen Bettibi, brother of the jailed cyber-dissident Ramzi Bettibi, were stopped by agents in civilian clothes as they left the CNLT office. The agents searched the bag of Samia Abbou, who was aggressively insulted and manhandled.
Norwegian PEN condemns these assaults and attacks on the rights of CNLT members and others, including the right to freedom of expression and assembly. We consider these CNLT members to have been targeted by the Tunisian authorities solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, as guaranteed by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Tunisia is a signatory.
