WSIS C2C / CàC SMSI : Should Canada go to Wsis 2: New report on Tunisia

More food for thought.
PRESS RELEASE
Rights and Democracy/FIDH/OMCT - May 12th 2005
Publication of a report
International fact-finding mission : the World Summit on Information Society and Tunisia
Press release available at:
http://www.fidh.org/article.php3?id_article=2418

Paris – Tunis - Geneva – Montreal, May 12th 2005
Three international Human rights NGOs release a joint report on the information society in Tunisia and on the operational conditions for the preparation of the World Summit on Information society to be held in Tunis in Novembre 2005.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Rights and Democracy, and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) express their « grave preoccupation at the capacity or the willingness of the Tunisian authorities to respect their obligations under international law », both as regards the organisation of the participation of civil society to the Novembre 2005 Summit, as well as in the setting up of the information society in Tunisia. The report was published in Tunis on May 6th, at a seminar organised by the Tunisian League for Human Rights (Ligue tunisienne des droits de l'Homme -LTDH) and the National Centre for Freedoms in Tunisia (Centre national pour les libertés en Tunisie -CNLT) on the occasion of the international Press Freedom Day.

The report sheds a light on the numerous practices of arbitrary detention, manhandling, judicial harassment against Human rights defenders and their organisations, the systematic repression of freedom of expression and association, the censorship and the control over the Internet, which constitute as many obstacles to the realisation of an information society respectful of Human Rights in Tunisia.

President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali committed during the presidential electoral campaign, to set the development of communication technologies as a priority for the country. The members of the international fact-finding mission have measured the importance of this challenge for Tunisia. They nevertheless are preoccupied by the negative impact the control and censorship of the media and the Internet have on the confidence of the users and the information society's economics in the country.

Moreover, obstacles remain to the full participation of the Tunisian civil society to the Novembre 2005 summit. They concern both the accreditation of non-recognized NGOs, as well as the capacity for civil society to express itself freely.

The three NGOs therefore call upon the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary steps, between now and the Summit, to ensure that Human Rights are respected and protected, during and after the Summit, and in particular:

1. To give legal recognition to all Human Rights NGOs that are not yet recognised, to drop all legal proceedings against them or against their members, and so to establish freedom of association in Tunisia on a lasting and permanent basis;

2. To release the persons arbitrarily convicted in the "Zarzis" and "Ariana" Internet users cases;

3. To allow free circulation of information, in particular accessibility to websites with a political or Human Rights content;

4. To release the prisoners subjected to arbitrary judgement following the Ennadha trial;

5. To issue a standing invitation to all the mechanisms of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and to allow an official visit of the Rapporteurs on torture, on the independence of judges and lawyers, and of the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations for Human Rights Defenders, in accordance with their own terms of reference;

6. To implement the recommendations made by the United Nations Human Rights mechanisms;

7. To allow all Human Rights organisations wishing to visit Tunisia in order to carry out independent and impartial enquiries, to do so.

8. To initiate a reform of the Press Code in order to suspend the "receipt" procedures concerning the publication of periodicals, books or other printed or audiovisual material;

9. To revise the calls for tenders for opening up the Tunisian audiovisual environment, in compliance with the Tunisian Telecommunications Code, in particular the provisions on the transparency of calls for tenders, and to allow the representation of media reflecting political diversity;

10. To carry out a study on the impact of the legislation, regulations and ICT practices on respect for Human Rights;

11. To assess the consequences of the monitoring and censorship of electronic exchanges of information in terms of the social appropriation of ICTs and the economic development of information services;

12. To attach to all financial aid to ICT projects a section on respect for Human Rights and democracy. This applies particularly to the "Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Sector Development Project", for which Tunisia has been awarded a 10.8 million euro loan from the World Bank.

Background

On the occasion of the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), several independent Tunisian human rights NGOs requested the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (ICHRDD - Rights and Democracy), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), with the support of the Human Rights Caucus, to mandate a team of experts in the new information technologies, the media and human rights, to undertake an investigation and dialogue mission, in preparation of this Summit.

The mission took place in Tunis, from 25 to 28 January 2005. It was composed of:
- Jean-Louis Roy, President of Rights and Democracy. A former director of the Montreal daily newspaper, Le Devoir, Mr Roy was, from 1990 to 1998, Secretary General of the intergovernmental agency for the francophone world (l’Agence intergouvernementale de la francophonie - AIF) in Paris.
- Deborah Hurley, former director of Harvard University's Information Infrastructure Project. From 1988 to 1996, she was responsible in OECD for legal, economic, social and technical matters linked with information and communications technologies, and, in particular, was responsible for research relating to the protection of personal data and privacy and to the security of information systems.
- Younes M’jahed, a journalist and Secretary General of the Moroccan Union of the press (Syndicat national de la presse marocaine), is a member of the executive committee of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Vice President of the Commission for Freedoms of the Arab Federation of Journalists.

Download the report in English:
===============================
Tunisia and the World Summit on Information Society
Rights and Democracy/FIDH/OMCT Report (24 pages - PDF Document 615 kb)
http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/tn418a.pdf

Media Contact
=============
Antoine Madelin (Secretary for the mission): [+33] (0)6 68 22 65 72

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Stifled Tunisia gets a UN reward - Lebanon Star commentary

by DrJ on 2005, Mai 13 - 10:07pm

Stifled Tunisia gets a UN reward

By Kamel Labidi
Commentary by
Saturday, May 14, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=15072

No Arab ruler pays more lip service to democracy and press freedom, while simultaneously silencing critics and independent journalists, than Tunisian President Zein al-Abedin ben Ali. Addressing the state-run Tunisian Association of Newspapers Editors (TANE) and the Association of Journalists (AJ) recently on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, Ben Ali claimed that under his rule, press freedom and free expression were gaining ground and that journalists were "performing their mission" through outlets "free and committed to democracy."

The president was hardly speaking to a credible audience. TANE was expelled in 1997 from the World Association of Newspapers for its failure to defend press freedom, while AJ saw its membership suspended in 2004 by the International Federation of Journalists for awarding Ben Ali its "Golden Quill" award.

The president's statements came as delegates representing several international groups committed to the protection of freedom of expression were heading to Tunisia to release two alarming reports on the regime's attacks against the rights of free expression, association and assembly. Paradoxically, Tunisia will host the United Nation's World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in November.

Attacks on freedom of expression and police harassment of independent journalists like Lotfi Hajji, the head of the Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists, continued unabated even on World Press Freedom Day. Hajji was summoned twice in less than a week by police for making public a report holding the government responsible for turning the Tunisian media into a lifeless tool of misinformation.

Alexis Krikorian of the Geneva-based International Publishers Association declared afterward: "It is ironic that the Tunisian authorities are choosing to mark World Press Freedom Day in this way. But it is even more ironic that while the authorities are harassing Hajji, they are telling us that there is no harassment of the media in Tunisia." Krikorian and his colleagues in the 13-member Tunisia Monitoring Group, established in 2004 under the umbrella of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), just launched the Arabic edition of a report titled, "Tunisia: Freedom of Expression under Siege."

The report documents cases of individuals imprisoned for "expression of their opinions or media activities" and the importation and distribution of books. It mentioned that the authorities had also obstructed Web sites and prevented peaceful public assembly. The report also shed light on police surveillance and harassment of political dissidents and human rights defenders.

Mark Bench of the World Press Freedom Committee, one of the members of IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group, told Tunisian officials that "he had traveled nearly 200 times in recent years in different parts of the world, but has never experienced so much police surveillance."

The group's recommendations seem to have fallen on deaf ears, like those made nearly five years ago by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Abid Hussain. The UN official was struck by the "uniformity of tone" of the Tunisian media and the absence of criticism of the government. His recommendations to "remove all obstacles to intellectual and artistic creativity" and to stop harassing "persons seeking to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression" provoked anger and denial from official sources.

The second report on Tunisia launched recently was the work of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, the World Organization against Torture and a Canadian group called Rights and Democracy. It repeated the familiar accusations leveled against Tunisia's regime and urged the government to make "substantive progress" toward freedom of expression.

Both the latter report and the one by the IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group warned that the failure of the Tunisian government to end attacks on human rights and free expression "may compromise the effectiveness and the credibility" of the WSIS. Indeed, many Tunisians are wondering why their government was allowed to host the UN summit in the first place. "This meeting is going to be rather negative because there is no guarantee that the voices of Tunisians striving to be free and peacefully opposing dictatorship will be heard," said Mohammad Talbi, a former university dean and prominent advocate of freedom of expression.

Meanwhile, the arrests continue. On April 28, Mohammad Abbou, a prominent human rights lawyer, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for, among other things, an Internet article in which he compared the inhumane conditions in Tunisian prisons to those of the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In early May another human rights lawyer, Fawzi ben Mrad, was sentenced to four months in prison after criticizing the government.

How did Ben Ali assert his autocracy? In 1992, he opportunistically used the outbreak of violence in neighboring Algeria following the cancellation of the results of the first round of legislative elections (which the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win) to crack down on dissent in Tunisia. President George W. Bush's "war on terror" provided him with another precious opportunity to tighten the screws on what was once the most vibrant society in the region. Indeed, Tunisia, 145 years ago, was the first entity in the Middle East and North Africa to have a Constitution, and in 1956 it was the first to grant women their rights.

It is unlikely that the government will do anything but introduce cosmetic changes before the WSIS summit. Indeed, little can be expected from Ben Ali when it comes to freedom of expression. The regime prefers sycophants who write propaganda pieces about the president, the same man who claims he is paving the way for greater democracy in Tunisia.

Kamel Labidi is a freelance journalist in Cairo. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

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Meeting on Wsis with Tunisian authorities - CONGO

by DrJ on 2005, Mai 13 - 4:33pm

[ The Conference of NGOs (CONGO) is an international, membership association that facilitates the participation of NGOs in United Nations debates and decisions. Founded in 1948, CONGO's major objective is to ensure the presence of NGOs in exchanges among the world's governments and United Nations agencies on issues of global concern. For more information see our website at www.ngocongo.org]

CONGO, ICV and NGLS had a short meeting on 12 May with the Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hattem Ben Salem, some other Tunisian Officials, Charles Geiger and Moncef Achour from the WSIS ES.

The purpose was to get more clarification on some of our pressing issues at this time.
From:
Renate Bloem
President of the Conference of NGOs (CONGO)
11, Avenue de la Paix
CH-1202 Geneva
Tel: +41 22 301 1000
Fax: +41 22 301 2000
Website: www.ngocongo.org
We referred to elements of the CS B2B document, concerning the host country, (see attachments)
1. Logistics

Since governments will have today (Friday 13 May) a visual presentation from the Tunisians on the state of art of preparations, we asked for a full presentation for CS. There was agreement to have such a presentation for CS in the first part of June, most probably near the proposed date of a (GFC) meeting on the 13th June and the following WGIG to profit from the presence of as many CS participants as possible. Specific questions on Office space for CS structures, including connectivity, LAN etc. were referred to such a presentation meeting.
2. Side events

So far they have received almost the double amount of requests for space of what they can accommodate for such events. They are looking for additional space e.g. in form of tents in the surrounding park but with weather conditions in November this could be hazardous. At the same time they will try to go back to some of the requesters and ask them for more moderation in order to be at the end as inclusive as possible. We asked -and were strongly backed by Charles Geiger- to make public all existing requests, so this could help – in addition to transparency – to bringing some events of similar nature/content together.

Since they have received so many requests, it was not clear, who so far – or not – has received confirmation.

They mentioned 30 May when they would have a clearer picture.

The ES would only intervene in side events if referrals/rejections/controversy would occur, which Charles Geiger hoped would not happen. It was mentioned that deadlines are deadlines, but that doors are not closed as long as space could be made available.
3. Exhibition space

They saw the exhibition area as a total commercial space to showcase big projects of joint nature (private, public, CS). They mentioned that they had received many such projects, in which civil society was already involved. We argued, however, that CS needed also space in that area to help initiate partnership projects on their own, and that they needed to get extensive price reductions for such space. It was duly noted.

4. Security and Privacy

Both the Tunisians and the ES claimed that this was an issue to be handled only by Tunisian authorities together with the ITU. We argued that at least they should make everything transparent and known on their website. The more information would get out on any preparation, the better it would be for all. We also asked when the UN- host country agreement would be signed and publicized and were told that they had agreement on 80% and would hopefully sign before PrepCom3.
5. Funding

The Minister mentioned in general that the financial situation was more precarious than anticipated and that they had somehow underestimated the costs of this Summit or were in a different position a year ago when e.g. the oil prize was half of what it is now. But on our persistent question on how the pledged 400.000 Dinar would be made available for CS, we heard that it was earmarked for CS from LDCs. They were nevertheless open when we strongly argued - supported by the ES- for using it for all developing countries as well as for countries in transition.

We mentioned over and again to be transparent and communicative and they promised to develop a small simple SC page on their site which could be connected to CONGO and NGLS site.

Our discussion was of a very frank nature, no ”langue de bois”. When we heard that the Minister had attended as an NGO the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 and all other UN Summits as well, we challenged him strongly that the 1993 message of all human rights being interdependent, should be carried forward at this Summit with a visible sign from Tunisia in this direction. Enshallah….

Friday night (13 May)

CONGO organized a Briefing this afternoon on NGO input into the Mill+5 Summit. At the end of the meeting I met Ambassador Karklins who came out of the Gov. Bureau meeting. He asked me to forward to you that there will be an Informal/Formal Meeting of the GFC, which is not formally a GFC anymore. But this meeting will be open to all stakeholders to discuss Chapters 1 and 4, on Implementation/Stocktaking and Follow up.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
Renate Bloem
President of the Conference of NGOs (CONGO)
11, Avenue de la Paix
CH-1202 Geneva
Tel: +41 22 301 1000
Fax: +41 22 301 2000
Website: www.ngocongo.org

The Conference of NGOs (CONGO) is an international, membership association that facilitates the participation of NGOs in United Nations debates and decisions. Founded in 1948, CONGO's major objective is to ensure the presence of NGOs in exchanges among the world's governments and United Nations agencies on issues of global concern. For more information see our website at www.ngocongo.org

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Little room for taking Tunisian government to task Bleak picture

by DrJ on 2005, Mai 17 - 9:19pm

Little room for taking Tunisian government to task

by Sihem Bensedrine
Mail and Guardian Online
http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=238629&%3barea=%2finsight%2finsight__africa%2f

The plight of Tunisian attorney Mohamed Abbou has been in the spotlight for several weeks now, with United States State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher being quoted earlier this month as saying Washington is “very concerned” about Abbou’s imprisonment.

The attorney received a three-and-a-half-year sentence last month for having made statements deemed likely to disturb public order -- this after he criticised Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s invitation to Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to attend the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

The conference is scheduled to take place in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, in November.

Abbou placed his critique on the Tunisnews website, which is censored in Tunisia.

The attorney also posted an article in which he compared prison conditions in the North African country to those at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. This jail became the focus of international attention in April last year because of the abusive treatment a number of its inmates received at the hands of occupying American forces.

Abbou’s sentence shook public opinion in Tunisia, and was greeted with particular alarm by the country’s legal community, which staged a round-the-clock sit-in over the trial. This demonstration was held at the Tunisian bar association’s premises, opposite the Palace of Justice.

Hearings in the case got under way on April 28, with large numbers of police and a few international observers in attendance. Police laid siege to the Palace of Justice, closing its gates to Tunisian observers and violently evicting those who managed to slip inside anyway.

Procedural flaws

Abbou’s attorney, Raouf Ayadi, says the trial was marred by numerous procedural flaws, such as the merging of the case about alleged incitement to public disorder with an assault charge filed by a ruling-party official, apparently to discredit Abbou.

He also pointed to the judges’ refusal to allow several defence requests, including a plea for the hearing to be postponed so that the dossier for the assault charge could be examined.

In addition, defence witnesses were refused permission to appear, says Ayadi. The presiding judges made no effort to disguise the fact the trial was a “settling of political accounts that the regime often inflicts on dissidents”, he notes.

This is the same Tunisia that prides itself on having liberalised the internet and on promoting the information society.

Huge placards advertising the WSIS greet arrivals at Tunisian airports. In every speech given at commemorations or on public holidays, Ben Ali mentions this United Nations event, on one occasion describing it as “the international community’s vote of confidence in Tunisia’s clear-sighted policies”.

But, “In Tunisia, they’re more likely to liberalise guns than words,” says Khelil Ezzaouia, leader of the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH). Activists allege that the country’s affairs are organised simply to create the appearance of democracy and respect for the rule of law, to ensure that Tunisia receives support from developed nations.

In part, this is achieved through manipulation of advertising revenues.

Under law, the Tunisian External Communication Agency (ATCE), Tunisia’s official public-relations body, is allowed to allocate public funds set aside for advertising. As the LTDH and other rights organisations have noted, advertising slots are only bought in publications that take an uncritical view of the government.

Activists say private advertisers are expected to restrict themselves to media approved by the ATCE, failing which they may be subject to tax audits or other unwelcome attention from the government.

According to the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia, approved publications specialise in defamation of dissidents and singing the praises of Ben Ali.

Of the 300 newspapers published in Tunisia, only two are opposition-party publications: Al Mawkif and Attariq al Jadid. However, these papers are not allowed to advertise or solicit public support.

The broadcast media are, almost without exception, state-run.

A single private station called Radio Mosaique received permission to go on air in November last year. However, the conditions under which this licence was granted appear somewhat dubious. Concerns have also been expressed about the manner in which a licence was awarded to the sole, nominally private television station, Hannibal -- which is subsidised by the government.

The results of this media ownership policy could be seen during the 2004 presidential election.

A report on media coverage during the campaign compiled by International Media Support criticised the amount of print and airtime devoted to the president, who was returned to office for a fourth term with 94,45% of the vote. International Media Support, based in Copenhagen, works to strengthen press freedom around the world.

“President Ben Ali was the central figure in this campaign, receiving about 77% of coverage done by the audiovisual media, and about 92% of coverage in the written press,” said the document.

Khedija Chérif, a well-known human rights activist, despairs at this situation.

“Under the guise of enjoying freedom of expression, Tunisians content themselves with the ‘political stability’ provided by the iron fist of Ben Ali ... and postpone their hopes for democracy,” he notes. -- IPS

This analysis was jointly published by InfoSud, a news agency based in Switzerland, and IPS

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