The following is a 13 April 2000 RSF press release: Journalist Taoufik Ben Brick’s health deteriorating “Taoufik Ben Brick must end his hunger strike. He has already lost eleven kilos, which is far too much,” stated the doctor who examined the journalist on 12 April. Moncef Marzouki, spokesperson for the National Council for Freedoms in […]
The following is a 13 April 2000 RSF press release:
Journalist Taoufik Ben Brick’s health deteriorating
“Taoufik Ben Brick must end his hunger strike. He has already lost eleven kilos, which is far too much,” stated the doctor who examined the journalist on 12 April. Moncef Marzouki, spokesperson for the National Council for Freedoms in Tunisia (Conseil national pour les libertés en Tunisie, CNLT) added that the doctors had noted “a drop in his blood pressure and metabolic imbalances.”
Taoufik Ben Brick is on a hunger strike in an attempt to get his passport back. It was seized in April 1999. The journalist began his hunger strike on 3 April in the offices of the Aloès publishing house. On 11 April, the police intervened, expulsing the journalist and his friends from the offices. Since then, Taoufik Ben Brick has continued his hunger strike at the CNLT headquarters.
A correspondent with Reporters sans frontières (RSF), the French daily La Croix and the Infosud and Syfia news agencies, Taoufik Ben Brick has been the target of continuous harrasment from the Tunisian authorities over the last two years: anonymous telephone threats, the cutting of his telephone and fax lines, police surveillance of his home, the seizure of his passport, his car vandalised, insults, attacks, etc.
In light of the Tunisian authorities’ stubbornness and with protests against this situation growing, RSF is launching a petition on behalf of the journalist. Signatories of this text are asking the Tunisian authorities to “return Taoufik Ben Brick’s passport to him so that he can travel and work freely”. The petition can be signed on RSF’s website: www.rsf.fr
