UN Condemns Tunisia for Torture of Human Rights Advocate
The United Nations Committee Against Torture has found Tunisia responsible for torture in the case of Ben Salem v. Tunisia, Communication No. 269/2005. The case, brought by the World Organisation Against Torture, was decided during the Thirty Ninth Session of the Committee against Torture, in Geneva, Switzerland, and communicated to the parties on 23 November 2007.
Mr. Ben Salem, the complainant, is the founder of two Tunisian human rights organizations – the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT) and the Association Tunisienne de Lutte contre la Torture (ALTT). In April 2000, while attending a rally in support of a colleague whose passport had been confiscated by the Tunisian authorities, Mr. Ben Salem, who was 67 years old at the time, was arrested by plain clothes police officers and savagely beaten to the point of losing consciousness. After the beatings stopped and while he was still unconscious, he was driven to the outskirts of Tunis and dumped in a deserted area. Today, at the age of 74, Mr. Ben Salem continues to suffer from permanent cranial and back injuries due to the severity of the ill-treatment.
Shortly after the incident, Mr. Ben Salem filed several complaints with the Tunisian judicial authorities who took no action to investigate his allegations. In May 2005, the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) brought the case to the Committee against Torture which found that the treatment he suffered at the hands of Tunisian public officials amounted to torture as defined in Article 1 of the UN Convention against Torture. In their ruling, the CAT Committee stated that the evidence showed that Tunisian officials tortured him for purposes of “punishing” him and “intimidating” him for his activities as a human rights activist.
Additionally, the CAT Committee found that the Tunisian authorities’ failure to start a prompt and effective investigation of Mr. Ben Salem’s complaint, and their failure to provide him with a remedy constituted violations of Articles 11, 12 and 13 of the Convention. The Committee stipulated that Tunisia is under an obligation to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of torture and provide appropriate compensation to Mr. Ben Salem. The decision further provides that Tunisia has 90 days to inform the Committee of the steps it has taken to implement the decision.
This case is significant in that it is one of only a handful of cases in which the Committee against Torture has specifically found the impugned treatment to amount to torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention. Moreover, the case is emblematic of the Tunisian government’s practice of intimidation, harassment and severe persecution of human rights activists. Prosecutions of public officials who commit the crimes of torture and ill-treatment are virtually unheard of in Tunisia and impunity for torture therefore remains the rule rather than the exception.
OMCT calls upon the Government of Tunisia to take the occasion of this decision to demonstrate its willingness to begin to rectify its abysmal human rights record by giving full and immediate effect to the Committee’s ruling.
For further information, please contact:
Boris Wijkström
OMCT Legal Advisor
bw@omct.org
Geneva, 27 November 2007