Tunisia: Radhia Nasraoui forbidden to leave Tunisia!

Radhia Nasraoui

The EMHRN and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders denounce the fact that Ms Radhia Nasraoui, President of the Tunisian Association Against Torture (ALTT), was not allowed to leave Tunisia on Tuesday, 20 October.

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Paris-Copenhagen-Genève, 20 October 2009. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), denounce the fact that Ms Radhia Nasraoui, President of the Tunisian Association Against Torture (ALTT), was not allowed to leave Tunisia on Tuesday, 20 October.

Ms Radhia Nasraoui showed up on the morning of Tuesday, 20 October at the Tunis airport where she was supposed to take a flight to France. After checking-in her luggage and receiving a boarding card, border police informed her that she was forbidden to leave the country. The reason put forward was that a complaint had supposedly been lodged against Ms Nasraoui in 2008 by an anonymous party. However it was impossible to obtain any further information about these alleged charges from Tunisian judicial authorities.

Ms Nasraoui was travelling to France to attend a conference on the situation in Redeyef and the Gafsa mining basin being held on the occasion of the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday, 20 October, organised by European MPs Hélène Flautre (Greens/EFA), Catherine Trautmann (PES) and Marie-Christine Vergiat (DVG). 

Ms Nasraoui was to appear in Strasbourg within the framework of a joint EMHRN and International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) delegation which included Kamel Jendoubi, President of the EMHRN President, Mrs Souhayr Benhassen, President of the FIDH, and Ms Houcine Bardi, legal counsel.

The EMHRN  and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defender firmly condemn this violation of the freedom to travel, whose objective in all probability is to prevent a dissident voice from expressing an opinion contrary to the official line during election period.

They invite the decision-making institutions of the European Union to ask Tunisia to act in accordance with its international commitments provided for in the Barcelona Declaration and namely The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights wherein Article 12 paragraph 2 states that Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own