Tunisia

“When I first heard that the summit was to be held

here, I viewed it as a humiliation that the dictatorship should have this

chance to present a modern mask to hide its face.”
-Mokhtar Yahyaoui, Tunis Center for the Independence of

the Judiciary³³³

“If technology is making the

world a ‘global village,’ then Tunisia is a basement cell in the village.”
-Ridha Barkati, Tunisian

Association against Torture³³⁴

“Diversity of opinion is

vital, I’m sure, but there are limits.”
-Tunisian Minister of

Communications Technology Montasser Ouaili³³⁵

On November 16-18, 2005, Tunisia-having first proposed the idea in 1998-will host the second phase of the U.N. World

Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a summit dedicating to “bridging the

digital divide and allowing the advent of an information society that is

balanced and accessible to all.”³³⁶ Tunisia prides itself on being the first country in the

region to establish a connection to the Internet and on being the first in the

region to include an explicit guarantee of universal human rights in its

constitution.

In a Publinet Internet café on a

nondescript street in western Tunis there hangs a portrait of Tunisian

President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali. Just below it, a sign reads “Opening disk

drives is strictly forbidden. Do not touch the parameters of the

configurations. It is forbidden to access prohibited sites. Thank you.”

Government regulations mandate that similar signs hang in every Internet café

in the country.

Late at night on March 1, 2005, plainclothes agents arrested

online journalist Mohamed Abou. The night before, Abou, the father of three,

had published an article on a banned Web site comparing President Ben Ali to

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Abou is now serving a three-year prison

term in Le Kef, roughly 200 km (105 miles) southwest of Tunis.

Zoheir Yahiaoui, a resident of Tunis who hid his online

identity behind the pen name Ettounsi (“the Tunisian”), was arrested at 7 p.m.,

June 4, 2002, by six plainclothesmen in the Internet café where he worked and

charged with publishing “false news” on Tunezine, the Web site he edited. He

was released more than a year later, in November 2003, and died of natural

causes in March 2005 at the age of 36.

Tests conducted by Human Rights

Watch in cooperation with other international and Tunisian organizations over

the course of September 2005 found that Tunisia censors hundreds of Web sites,

including sites that feature human rights news on Tunisia or articles that

portray the government in unflattering terms. Internet users in Tunisia uniformly told Human Rights Watch that they believe the government extensively

monitors email correspondence and Internet traffic. Some reported what they

believed was governmental interference with their email accounts.

Tunisian law allows for stiff

criminal penalties on those found guilty of spreading “false news” and libel.

These laws have been used to detain online writers for their expressing their

opinions. Tunisian regulations on the Internet further hold Internet service

providers (ISPs) liable for the content they carry, encouraging them to act as

auxiliary censors for the state.

While the government claims it is

devoted to free expression and has taken steps to improve access to the

Internet-most recently offering Internet service for the price of a local phone

call, for example-its record on freedom of expression online in practice has

led many Tunisian human rights workers to express disbelief that WSIS will be

held in their country.

Access to the Internet

The Tunisian government has taken positive steps to spread

access to information online. In 1999, when Human Rights Watch last issued a

report on freedom of expression online in the Middle East, an estimated

3,000-5,000 people were online in Tunisia.³³⁷ Today, the

quasi-governmental Agence Tunisien d’Internet (ATI) says there are 788,415

Tunisian users.³³⁸

The Tunisian government says all universities, secondary schools, and

scientific institutions are connected to the Internet.³³⁹

The government says it further aims to connect all primary schools to the

Internet by 2006.³⁴⁰

A network of between sixty and eighty³⁴¹ Internet access centers

has been established in youth clubs and culture centers. Each of the country’s

twenty-five governorates has Internet-connected computer centers for children.³⁴²

Government figures put the number of government-subsidized but privately

franchised “Publinet” Internet cafés at between 280³⁴³

and 310.³⁴⁴

The cafés offer affordable, if restricted, access to the Internet.

Riadh Dridi, chargé d’affairs a.i. at the Embassy of Tunisia

to the United States, told Human Rights Watch that in recent months,

This approach [to spread the Internet] has been

reinforced by measures introduced as part of the implementation of President

Ben Ali’s Electoral Program of 2004-2005, and aimed at the following objectives

in particular :

• Providing every citizen with the opportunity of having his or her

  own e-mail address.

• Establishing a public Internet-service center in each village,

  with especially low connection rates for centers established in rural areas.

• Enabling Tunisian families to purchase, with easy conditions, low-cost

  “family computers,” which are equipped with Internet connection capability.

• Generalizing broadband access throughout the country.

• Encouraging the participation of civil society in disseminating

  digital culture.³⁴⁵

Tunisian Minister of Communications Technology Dr. Montasser

Ouaili, when asked what he considered to be among the most positive recent

developments in the field of information technology in Tunisia, replied, “One of the major advances has been the evolution of the framework to further

advance competition. We are opening up the capital of the historical ISPs to

further expand the private sector. Competition is very stimulating.”³⁴⁶

In Tunisia, all Internet connections run through the ATI, a

quasi-governmental body under the authority of the Ministry of Communications

Technology. The ATI controls the “backbone” Internet infrastructure. Seven

public-sector ISPs designed to service the government bodies responsible for

research in, for example, health, education, and the environment, lease connections

from the ATI. In 1999, two private ISPs-PlaNet Tunisie and 3S Global Net, both

owned by people with close ties to President Ben Ali-leased bandwidth from the

ATI.³⁴⁷

In the past six years, the government has licensed three new private

ISPs-HexaByte, Topnet, and TUNET-to provide Internet access in Tunisia.

In April 2005, despite objections from free expression

groups, French Internet giant Wanadoo announced it had formed a partnership

with PlaNet Tunisie, which is owned by President Ben Ali’s daughter, Cyrine

Mabrouk.³⁴⁸

The cost of Internet access has fallen significantly in

recent years. In May 1999, PlaNet advertised dial-up Internet service for

roughly US$17 a month. By September 2005, that rate had fallen to US$3.75 a

month. PlaNet/Wanadoo offered high-speed, asymmetrical digital subscriber lines

(ADSL) lines starting from US$18.77 a month.³⁴⁹ 3S Global Net,

HexaByte, Topnet, and Tunet had all started offering unlimited dial-up service

to the Internet for the price of a local phone call.³⁵⁰

In 1999, Human Rights Watch reported that Tunisians had

complained of difficulties in applying for accounts that would enable them to

connect regularly to the Internet.³⁵¹

A September 2005 visit to Tunisia found no such problems. Tunisians can now

access the Internet instantly by filling out an online form that requires users

to provide their name, address, telephone number, and age. And they can do so

for the cost of a local phone call.

Legal Framework

Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Tunisia is a state party, sets out the

minimum international standards for freedom of expression. It states : “Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without

interference ; Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression ; this

right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas

of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print,

in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”³⁵² Tunisia is a party to the ICCPR.

Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’

Rights, which Tunisia ratified in 1982, guarantees that “Every individual shall

have the right to receive information,” and that “every individual shall have

the right to express and disseminate his opinions within the law.”³⁵³

Article 32 of Tunisia’s Constitution holds that “treaties

ratified by the president of the republic and approved by the chamber of

deputies have an authority superior to that of [Tunisian] laws.”³⁵⁴

The right to freedom of expression, the right to access information, then, are

among the rights enshrined in Tunisian law which Tunisian courts are bound to

uphold.

According to Article 8 of the Constitution, “The freedoms of

opinion, expression, the press, publication, assembly, and association are

guaranteed and exercised under the conditions laid down by the law.” Article 9,

as amended in 2002, states, “The inviolability of the home, the confidentiality

of correspondence, and the protection of personal data shall be guaranteed, subject

to exceptional cases prescribed by law.”³⁵⁵ Article 5, also amended in 2002, “guarantees

fundamental freedoms and human rights in their universal, comprehensive,

complementary, and interdependent application.”³⁵⁶

Tunisian officials boast that Tunisia is the only Arab, Middle Eastern country

with such a guarantee in its constitution.³⁵⁷ In a May 2001 interview

with journalists from Tunisia’s Essabah and Ech-Chorouk dailies,

President Ben Ali said, “I will say to you, once more, loud and clear : Write on

any subject you choose...There are no taboos except what is prohibited by law and

press ethics.”³⁵⁸

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the government of Tunisia indicated that

Electronic mail, newsgroups, and online discussion forums

are not subject to any specific regulations [original emphasis]. The

same holds true for online speech.

The various forms of online expression are protected by

the Constitution, particularly article 8, which provides that “freedom of

opinion, expression, the press, publication, assembly and association are

guaranteed and exercised according to the terms defined by the law.”

[original emphasis]

Current laws that are related to this article or are

pertinent to online communications include the Press Code, laws on intellectual

and artistic property, the Penal Code, and the anti-terrorism law (regarding

incitement to hatred). The hosting of Web sites is considered among the

added-value services of the communications sector (governed by a decision

issued by the Minister of Communications and a specifications book dating back

to 1997).³⁵⁹

The first article of Tunisia’s Press Code guarantees “the freedom of the press,

publishing, printing, distributing and sale of books and publications.”³⁶⁰

However, a number of laws permit the prosecution of writing or speech that

displeases the authorities. The Press Code provides prison terms for criminal

defamation, although 2001 amendments removed an article criminalizing “defaming

the public order.” The amendments preserved the government’s power to ban

newspapers, but shortened the maximum duration from six months to three months.³⁶¹

Articles 35, 37, 38, 39, 45, 61, and 62, all of which carried prison terms,

were simply transferred out of the Press Law and into the Penal Code.³⁶²

The articles of the Press Code most often used to punish

criticism are Article 49 and Articles 50-53. Article 49 provides for up to

three years’ imprisonment for “publishing false news” likely to disturb the

public order. Article 50 states that defamation has occurred if there has been

“a public allegation or attribution of a fact that harms the honor or esteem (considération)

of a person or state agency to whom the fact was attributed.” Defamation is

punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of up to 1,200 dinars (US$900)

if the offending material is published “directly or by means of reproduction.”

The code specifies various public entities that can be thus defamed, including

“the courts, the ground, sea and air forces, public agencies and public

administrations.” Defamation is punishable by the same penalties if it is

committed against one or more “members of the government, one or more deputies,

civil servants,” and other public servants “by virtue of their functions or

their status.” The truth of the allegation can be used as a defense, but not in

all situations.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee, which reviews the

compliance of states parties with the ICCPR, in 1995 noted its concern that

dissent and criticism of the Government are not fully

tolerated in Tunisia and that, as a result, a number of fundamental freedoms

guaranteed by the Covenant are not fully enjoyed in practice.... In

particular...the Committee is concerned that those sections of the Press Code

dealing with defamation, insult and false information unduly limit the exercise

of freedom of opinion and expression as provided for under article 19 of the

Covenant. In this connection, the Committee is concerned that those offences

carry particularly severe penalties when criticism is directed against official

bodies as well as the army or the administration, a situation which inevitably

results in self-censorship by the media when reporting on public affairs.³⁶³

The committee further stipulated, “When a State party

imposes certain restrictions on the exercise of freedom of expression, these

may not put in jeopardy the right itself.”³⁶⁴ The Special Rapporteur

on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and

expression in January 2000 urged

all Governments to ensure that press offenses are no longer

punishable by terms of imprisonment, except in cases involving racist or

discriminatory comments or calls to violence. In the case of offences such as

“libeling,” “insulting” or “defaming” the head of State and publishing or

broadcasting “false” or “alarmist” information, prison terms are both

reprehensible and out of proportion to the harm suffered by the victim. In all

such cases, imprisonment as punishment for the peaceful expression of an

opinion constitutes a serious violation of human rights.³⁶⁵

The anti-terrorism law of December 2003, contains a

definition of terrorism that is broad and subject to abuse. Article 4 of the

law defines terrorism as

any offense, whatever the motive, that is related to an

individual or collective enterprise capable of terrorizing a person or a group

of persons, to sow terror in the population, in order to influence the policies

of the state and to force it to do that which it would not otherwise do or to

refrain from doing what it would otherwise do, or in order to disturb the

public order, tranquility, or international security...

The law does not limit the

definition of terrorism to the use of violent means, nor does it define phrases

like “influence[ing] the policies of the state” or “terrorizing a person or a

group of people.”³⁶⁶

Article 6 of the anti-terrorism

law extends the legal regime for “terrorism” to “acts of incitement to racial

or religious hatred or fanaticism, whatever the methods used....”³⁶⁷ Thus, speech that “incites”

others to “fanaticism” could be considered a terrorist act under the law,

whether or not those who were influenced by it committed acts of violence. The

law’s definition of prohibited “terrorist incitement” is also broader than the

restrictions on freedom of expression permitted under Article 20 of the ICCPR,

which only allows curbs on “any advocacy of national,

racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination,

hostility or violence.”³⁶⁸ The law provides harsh penalties and allows the state to

refer civilian suspects to military courts, whose verdicts are not subject to

appeal.

The Tunisian government told

Human Rights Watch that the hosting of Web sites is “governed by a decision

issued by the Minister of Communications and a specifications book dating back

to 1997.” This presumably refers to a decree issued on March 22, 1997

(hereafter “the Internet decree”).³⁶⁹

It followed by eight days a decree that covers telecommunications services more

generally.³⁷⁰

The telecommunications decree provides the following :

• The Press Code shall apply to the production, provision,

  distribution and storing of information through telecommunication means,

  including the Internet (article 1).

• All Internet service providers (ISPs) must obtain a license from

  the Ministry of Communications (article 7).

• A “Commission on Telecommunications Services” shall review each

  application to operate an ISP company ; the commission includes representatives

  from the ministries of defense and interior, as well as officials holding posts

  related to communications, information and computer sciences (article 8).

The Internet decree of March 22,

1997 imposes the following rules :

• Each ISP must designate a director who “assumes

  responsibility...for the content of pages and Web pages and sites that the ISP

  is requested to host on its servers (article 9, paragraph 3).” Internet users

  and those who maintain Web sites and servers are also responsible for

  infractions of the law (article 9, paragraph 4) ;

• Each ISP must submit, on a monthly basis, a list of its Internet

  subscribers to the “public operator” (the ATI) (article 8, paragraph 5) ; if the

  ISP closes down or stops providing services, it must “without delay” turn over

  to the “public operator” a complete set of its archives (“l’ensemble des

  supports d’archivage”) as well as the means to read it (article 9,

  paragraph 7).

• The “director” of the ISP must maintain “constant oversight” of

  the content on the ISP’s servers, to insure that no information remains on

  the system that is contrary to “public order and good morals” (“l’ordre

  publique” and “bonnes mœurs,” the same phrases that are found in

  Article 62 of the Press Code, which provides for the confiscation of

  publications).

The Internet decree also bars

encryption without prior approval from the authorities (article 11). A September

1997 decree on encryption requires that people or service providers who wish to

encrypt data must submit an application to the Ministry of Communications and

provide the keys needed to decrypt the data. The ministry decides on the

application after consulting the Commission on Telecommunications, cited above.³⁷¹

A subsequent decision, issued by

the National Agency for Electronic Certification (Agence Nationale de

Cetrification Electronique, or ANCE) in November 2001, upheld the same

principles but changed some of the details : Encryption was now under the

purview of the defense ministry and a new encryption commission (article 4)

comprised of representatives from five ministries plus the ANCE and the Center

for Telecommunications Studies and Research (Article 15).³⁷²

Anyone wishing to encrypt communications is required to file a request with the

ANCE, including a detailed description of the means of encryption and a manual

explaining how to use and program the encryption technology.

The contract that institutional

subscribers sign when obtaining services from the ATI imposes further

government controls. Most remarkably, it requires users to affirm that they

will “use the Internet only for scientific, technological or commercial

purposes that are strictly related to the activity of the client, in strict

conformity with the rules in effect.” The contract also requires that clients :

• “Disclose to the ATI all accounts that have been opened for users

  and those having access” ;

• “Prevent remote access to its network by external users who lack

  prior authorization from the ATI” ; and

• “Inform the ATI of any change in address, equipment, and user.”

The ATI reserves the right to

suspend Internet service without notice if the subscriber engages in any use

that is “improper or contrary to the conditions laid out” in the contract. The

agency also has the right under the contract to conduct site visits to ensure

that the equipment connected to the Internet is being used “in conformity with

the rules and laws as well as to ensure they are being used properly.”

Embassies and international institutions are exempted from this provision.

The standard contract imposes

legal responsibility on the ISP for content without limiting such

responsibility to removing banned content once the ISP is notified of its

presence. This has the potential to encourage ISPs to engage in

self-censorship.

The Tunisian government, in its

letter to Human Rights Watch, states that ISPs are responsible for the content

of Web sites they host. It does not address the content of email messages or

newsgroup postings, but responsibility for newsgroup content seems encompassed

by the section of the Internet decree stipulating that the ISP must allow

nothing to “remain” on its servers that harms “public order and good morals.”

This broad and vague wording seems intended to compel ISPs to err on the side

of censoring content so as to comply with the regulations.

The Tunisian government wrote to

Human Rights Watch that “Information which is available to ISPs about their

subscribers or users are [sic] confidential. Such information can only be

communicated to a third party as part of judicial proceedings.”³⁷³

But the Internet decree of 1997, which the government says is still valid,

holds that ISPs must submit the names of their subscribers to the government in

order to facilitate government maintenance of a statistical base and directory

of Internet users.³⁷⁴

This obligation of ISPs to

furnish the government with subscriber lists infringes the privacy and

anonymity rights of Internet users. The mandatory delivery to the authorities

of such information, which could facilitate electronic surveillance, can only

inhibit Tunisians wishing to express themselves or receive information online.

The contract ATI presents to institutional clients restricts

the clients’ right to seek and access information online. The requirement that

they use it only for “scientific, technological or commercial purposes that are

strictly related to the activity of the client” apparently bars them from using

the Internet account for any other purpose, under penalty of cancellation of

the contract. This again makes institutional clients monitors of their own

employees and clients.

Internet Censorship

Despite the strides the government has made in improving

access to the Internet, several Tunisian policies continue to restrict people’s

right to access information online.

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Chargé d’Affairs Dridi

wrote,

No content is blocked or censored, except for obscene

material or content threatening public order (i.e. incitement to hate,

violence, terrorism, and all forms of discrimination and bigoted behavior which

violate the integrity and dignity of the human person, and/or are prejudicial

to children and adolescents).³⁷⁵

Tunisian Minister of Communications Technology Montasser Ouaili further elaborated on this policy in

September 2005. “Any Web site that is pushing toward hatred or extremism is

blocked,” he said. “On the other side of the Mediterranean, the lack of Web

site blocking has had side-effects. Freedom should be associated with

responsibilities.”³⁷⁶

Tunisia’s censorship of Internet content, though it has apparently

eased slightly in recent years, still goes well beyond what could be considered

“incitement to hatred, violence, and terrorism.” In 1999, Human Rights

Watch reported that Tunisian Internet users had been unable to access Web sites

that published criticism of the Tunisian government.³⁷⁷

Among them were nonviolent political sites and the sites of the international

human rights organizations Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org),

Reporters sans frontières (http://www.rsf.fr), and the Committee to Protect

Journalists (http://www.cpj.org). Tunisian users told Human Rights Watch that

sites that reproduced or carried links to critical material from these and

other organizations were also blocked.³⁷⁸

In February 2000, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the

promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression,

Abid Hussain, confirmed and extended these findings. “It was mainly in

connection with the Internet,” he wrote, “that the Special Rapporteur noted the

most limitations.”³⁷⁹

He further reported that

certain Internet sites were permanently blocked, in

particular the e-mail sites (http://www.hotmail.com and

http://www.moncourrier.com) and NGO sites such as those of Amnesty

International, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, the

International Federation of Human Rights, Reporters without Borders and even

the sites of French newspapers and periodicals such as Le Monde, Libération and

Le Nouvel Observateur. Internet Users have even had policemen knocking

on their doors asking why they had accessed a particular site ; the sites they

visit can thus be monitored and their links cut.³⁸⁰

The Tests

Over the course of September 2005, researchers from Human

Rights Watch and the Open Net Initiative (ONI), assisted by researchers from

The Index on Censorship and the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie,

tested 1,947 Web sites from Tunisia. Using the methodology described in the

introduction to this report and in ONI’s other reports on Internet censorship

around the world, researchers tested three categories of sites :

• A list of “high impact” sites reported to be blocked or

  likely to be blocked in Tunisia because of their content ;

• A “global” or control list of sites reflecting a range of

  Internet content, (including, for example, major news sites and sites

  about “hacking”) ;

• A third list, comprising sites known to be blocked by

  SmartFilter software, in order to test whether the government was using

  this software to block Web sites, as previous tests suggested it was.³⁸¹

In Tunisia, attempts to navigate to a blocked Web site

immediately return a page disguised to look like a French-language Microsoft

Internet Explorer error page that reads “Impossible de trouver la page”

(impossible to find the page)-irrespective of the browser used to access the

page.

Researchers repeatedly tested 1,947 sites from different

locations within Tunisia using the private ISP 3S Global Net. Of the sites

tested, 184 were found to be blocked. It should be noted that these results

constitute a “snapshot” of the Tunisian Internet in September 2005. Sites

reported blocked at the time of our testing may no longer be blocked. Likewise,

sites that were available during our tests may no longer be available.

The Web sites of French newspapers Le Monde, Le

Monde Diplomatique, Libération, and Le Nouvel Obersvateur, which had

previously been reported blocked, were available in repeated tests conducted

over the course of September 2005.³⁸²

Amnesty International’s main site, http://www.amnesty.org, the Web site of the

Committee to Protect Journalists, http://www.cpj.org, Human Rights Watch’s Web

site, http://www.hrw.org, and Human Rights First’s Web site,

http://www.lchr.org-all of which had previously been reported blocked-were

available in September 2005. Tunisian Internet users confirmed that the sites

were no longer blocked as a rule.

Popular email sites previously reported blocked were also

available in September 2005. Of the twenty-five popular email sites researchers

tested, none were confirmed blocked. Tunisian Internet users likewise confirmed

that the government had stopped blocking web-based email sites.

January 2005 tests conducted by ONI in collaboration with

the free expression groups collectively called the Tunisia Monitoring Group

found http://www.multimania.com/solidarite26, a Web site set up to offer

solidarity to political prisoners in Tunisia, to be blocked.³⁸³

The site was available in September 2005.

Researchers tested fewer than 2,000 of the billions of pages

on the Internet. The one hundred eighty-two sites Human Rights Watch and ONI

confirmed as blocked thus likely represent a fraction of the total. This sample

of blocked sites suggests that Tunisia still routinely interferes with

Tunisians’ right to access and disseminate information.

Of the one hundred six sites researchers thought might be

blocked in Tunisia because of their content, sixty-nine were available and

thirty-seven were blocked. A list of these thirty-seven sites, categorized by

theme, follows :

Organizations, parties, and movements :

• http://www.ltdh.org, the Web site of the Tunisian League

  for the Defense of Human Rights.

• http://www.rsf.fr, the Web site of Reporters sans

  frontières. http://www.rsf.org is also banned.

• http://www.nahdha.net, the Web

  site of the al-Nahdha movement, a banned

  Tunisian Islamist group.

• http://www.mdstunisie.org, the former Web site of the

  Movement of Democratic Socialists, a legal opposition political party. The

  site is no longer maintained.

• http://perso.infonie.fr/tunisie-ugtef, the former site of

  the General Tunisian Student Union, dedicated to what the site describes

  as student political prisoners in Tunisia.

• http://www.tunisie2004.net, is associated with the

  Congress for the Republic (Congrès pour la République, CPR), an

  unauthorized political party whose president is Moncef Marzouki, the

  former president of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH).

  Tests on http://www.tunisie2004.net/new/ confirmed that pages within the

  domain are also blocked.

• http://www.cprtunisie.com, the official Web site of the

  CPR.

• http://www.ikhwanonline.com, the Web site of the Muslim

  Brotherhood, an Islamist political movement that is strongest in Egypt.

News, information, discussion, advocacy :

• http://www.tunisnews.net, which features news and

  commentary with an opposition slant. Many Tunisian activists, who can only

  read it in emails from friends and family abroad, describe it as the most

  popular source of online news in Tunisia despite the ban.

  ³⁸⁴

• http://www.tunezine.com, provides human rights news on Tunisia and is openly critical of the Tunisian government. Its late editor, Zoheir Yahiaoui, was imprisoned for articles he

  published on the site.

• http://www.perspectivestunisiennes.net, describes itself

  as “in favor of a democratic, modern, and prosperous Tunisia” and offers news and commentary, including articles reprinted form the international press.

• http://www.kalimatunisie.com, a bilingual (French-Arabic)

  online newspaper with a human rights focus, the print version of which has

  been unable to obtain legal authorization.

• http://www.rezoweb.com/forum/politi..., an

  online forum featuring open political discussions among Tunisians and

  political jokes. It included, for example, lists of students identified as

  political prisoners and accusations of mistreatment of prisoners in

  Tunisian custody. It has since fallen into disuse.

• http://www.globalprevention.com/mar..., a page

  dedicated to human rights defender Moncef Marzouki, who was imprisoned in

  1994 for “spreading false news.”

• http://www.nawaat.org, which features news articles, links

  to articles about Tunisia in international newspapers, forums, chat rooms,

  and photographs with an opposition slant. Tests found that the URL

  http://nawaat.org/portail was also blocked.

• http://www.albadil.org, the online heir to the banned

  weekly newspaper of the unauthorized Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party.

• http://www.verite-action.org, provides human rights news

  on Tunisia.

• http://www.zeitounatv.com, the former online presence of

  Zeitouna TV, a London-based satellite station directed at Tunisia. The Web site, no longer updated, is still blocked.

• http://www.alternatives-citoyennes...., describes

  itself as an online journal for Tunisians around the world to exchange

  information and ideas online.

• http://tounes.naros.info, L’autre Tunisie, describes

  itself as “for the emergence of a democratic alternative in Tunisia,” and posts news items and commentaries on human rights issues and politics that

  criticize the President Ben Ali and his government.

• http://www.maghreb-ddh.org, Maghreb des Droits de l’Homme,

  provides human rights news and information on Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania.

• http://www.islamonline.net, a popular pan-Arab news Web

  site that has carried articles critical of the Tunisian government.

• http://www.reveiltunisien.org, which provides news,

  information, and commentary with an opposition slant.

• http://www.dabbour.net, the Web site of a

  Switzerland-based Tunisian human rights activist.

• http://www.zarzis.org, a Web

  site dedicated to obtaining the release of the “Youths of Zarzis” (see

  below) and for an end to “cyber-repression.”

• http://www.h-ammar.nav.to, published a petition protesting

  Tunisia’s hosting of the 2001 Mediterranean (or Francophone) Games ; though

  no longer active the site remains blacklisted in Tunisia.

• http://www.infornews.com, once published material critical

  of the Tunisian government ; it is no longer active, but remains

  blacklisted in Tunisia.

• http://www.ezzeitouna.org, used to publish press releases

  from Tunisian human rights organizations and photographs from

  demonstrations against the government by expatriate Tunisians in France ; the site is no longer maintained.

SmartFilter Errors :

• http://www.lesbians-against-violence.com, a

  Frankfurt-based group that campaigns against domestic violence in lesbian

  relationships.

• http://www.oneinstitute.org, a U.S.-based library of books

  and films about lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people.

• http://www.bglad.com, which

  describes itself as a “Bi/Gay/Lesbian Links Directory.”

• http://www.lgf.org.uk, the Web

  site of the UK-based Lesbian & Gay Foundation.

• http://www.richard-gay.com, the

  Web site of Olympic French skier Richard Gay, apparently mistakenly

  blocked because of his name.

• http://www.geocities.com/almanzah8/..., which

  offers North African popular music songs. http://www.geocities.com, an

  “online community” that offers free web hosting, is also blocked in Tunisia.

• http://ourworld.compuserve.com,

  another “online community” that offers free web hosting and web publishing

  tools, and http://ourworld.compuserve.com/home...,

  a page providing information about scholarships to study science at

  historically black colleges in the United States.

• http://www.wingsforchildren.org, an organization dedicated

  to ending child abuse in South Carolina.

The tests conducted in September 2005 suggest that Tunisia still uses SmartFilter to block Web sites. SmartFilter users may choose to block

Web sites based on categories and by adding individual Web addresses to block.

SmartFilter continually updates the list of sites in each category. In the

interest of improving its software, it has provided users with an online tool

called “SmartFilterWhere.” Users, indeed anyone, may enter in a Web address to

see if SmartFilter has categorized that site and how. ONI previously documented

SmartFilter’s tendency to “overblock” sites.³⁸⁵ The Tunisian

government, for instance, has never expressed any hostility to French Olympic

skiers. But SmartFilter lists do mistakenly categorize

http://www.richard-gay.com, a French Olympic skier’s Web site, as “pornography”

and “sex.” SmartFilter lists likewise mistakenly categorize

http://www.lesbians-against-violence.com, http://www.biographysoftware.com,

http://www.oneinstitute.org, http://www.bglad.com, and

http://www.wingsforchildren.org, the Web site of a South Carolina organization

dedicated to ending sexual abuse of children, as “pornography” and “sex” sites.³⁸⁶

SmartFilter blocks http://ourworld.compuserve.com and

http://www.geocities.com as “Personal” sites,³⁸⁷

which could explain why Tunisia is blocking, for example, access to Web pages

providing information about scholarships to historically black colleges in the United States.

Human Rights Watch and ONI tested forty-eight popular proxy

servers-servers that could be used to circumvent the Tunisian censorship regime

by allowing Tunisians to browse the Web via a computer outside of Tunisia-and found that thirty-nine were blocked.³⁸⁸ By blocking the ability

of Internet users to use proxies, Tunisia further curbs their right to privacy

and to access information.

SmartFilter lists Web sites such as http://www.tunisnews.net,

http://www.tunezine.com, and http://www.kalimatunisie.com under the “general

news” and “politics/opinion” headings.³⁸⁹ Researchers tested

thirty-nine major news sites with no particular bearing on Tunisia and found none of them blocked in Tunis, suggesting that the government of Tunisia does not usually block access to general news sites. Likewise, researchers in tested

eighty-three Web sites of human rights and women’s rights organizations from

around the world and found none blocked-with the exception of Reporters sans

frontières’ site. It appears that the blocks on sites that report on human

rights violations in Tunisia were added by the government.

Tunisia has cited counterterrorism and the need to curb

incitement to hatred and violence as among its justifications for censoring

information online. Yet tests on forty-one radical Islamist Web sites found

only four blocked. Further, SmartFilter maintains a list of Web sites

pertaining to weapons, including sites where people can purchase weapons or

learn about their manufacture and maintenance. Tests carried out from Tunisia on forty-one of these sites returned no evidence that any were blocked. Human

Rights Watch does not wish to suggest that these sites should be censored, only

that their continued availability to Tunisians-in contrast to the block

against, for example, Reporters sans frontières-raises questions about the

government’s justifications for censorship.

“We cannot control the world,”

Minister of Communications Technology Montasser Ouaili recently said, “and with

this new tool [the Internet], we are exposed to everything in the world, so we

can be hurt from the outside, not just the inside.”³⁹⁰

The pattern of Tunisia’s online censorship suggests that, in practice, its

policy has been guided less by a fear of terrorism or incitement to violence

than by a fear of peaceful internal dissent.

Internet Cafés

Roughly 300 Internet cafés, or Publinets, service Tunisia-a country of approximately 10 million people. The cafés are owned by private

entrepreneurs but operate under the authority of the Ministry of

Communications, pursuant to a December 1998 decree.³⁹¹

Under the terms of the decree, “computers must be deprived of disk drives, but

owners are required to have at their clients’ disposal at least one terminal

capable of printing and saving documents to a removable disk. Only the owner

may print and save documents to disks” (Article 12.5).

Under Article 13 of the decree, Publinet owners are further

required :

• To comply with the deontological

  rules [i.e. those concerned with duties and rights] which the media obey...

• To maintain a database of their

  customers...and to present them with the balance of their accounts after

  each access.

• To give to their customers clear

  and precise information on the object of Internet services and their

  access, and, in particular those relating to the use of email....

• To inform customers by means of

  a clearly visible poster of their obligations and their responsibility for

  any infringements of the legal and lawful provisions relating to the

  Internet, and in particular those relating to the contents of the services

  they access....

• To sign an agreement with the

  ISP for access to the Internet.

The requirement that Publinet

owners must “comply with the deontological rules [i.e. those concerned with

duties and rights] which the media obey” suggests they may be criminally liable

for the activities of their customers in the same way Tunisian editors are

criminally liable for their reporters’ work under the Press Code.

Previous studies have reported

that Publinet customers have been asked to produce their identification cards

and to provide their names and addresses.³⁹²

The minister of communications technology dismissed these reports as

“fabrications.”³⁹³ Interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch in early

September 2005 confirmed that café owners at present do not take names at

Publinets in Tunis. When Human Rights Watch visited Publinets in Tunis, the café owners did not ask for a name or identification. All the computers were

arranged so the screens would be visible to the café owner. One owner commented

every time the researcher tried to access a banned site.

Surveillance

Tunisian activists uniformly told Human Rights Watch they

believe the government monitors electronic communications. They told stories of

email arriving late or not at all, of responses to emails coming from third

parties posing as the recipient when the intended recipient said he never

received the original message, of email inboxes being filled to saturation by

repeated emails saying only, for example, “You are traitor.” According to one

account from a Web site of a human rights activist blocked in Tunisia, the Interior Ministry employs 500 “Internet police,” most of whose time is spent reading

email.³⁹⁴

Sihem Bensedrine, the report’s author, told Human Rights Watch that she had

learned of the office’s existence from a journalist who said he had seen the

offices.³⁹⁵

Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm these allegations independently.

Detentions

Zoheir Yahiaoui

Zoheir Yahiaoui, editor of the unauthorized online journal Tunezine,

was the first Tunisian to be jailed for his online writing. Hosted in France, Tunezine featured mostly dissident and often sarcastic commentary on the political

situation in Tunisia.

Yahiaoui, a 33-year-old resident of Tunis who hid his online

identity behind the pen name Ettounsi (“the Tunisian”), was arrested on June 4,

2002, by six plainclothesmen at the Internet café where he worked. The police

took him to his home, where they reportedly conducted a search without a

warrant, seizing computer disks and equipment belonging to him. The police

returned to Yahiaoui’s home two days later and questioned family members. They

also arrested the manager of the Internet café where he worked.³⁹⁶

Yahiaoui was ill-treated during

the first two days of his detention in the Ministry of the Interior.³⁹⁷

His lawyers were not allowed to visit him in prison until June 11, 2002, a week

after his arrest.

On June 20, 2002, a court sentenced Yahiaoui to a year in

prison for disseminating “false information” and another sixteen months for

theft of telecommunication services. The fabricated charge of “stealing

Internet services” appears to have been based on the fact that he worked

without pay in the Internet café in exchange for having unlimited use of a

computer station there, from which he edited his Web sites. The second charge

of knowingly disseminating false information related to a rumor he published

that there had been an armed attack on the presidential palace that cost the

lives of several guards. In July, an appeals court reduced the sentence to two

years total. In January 2003, Yahiaoui went on a hunger strike for two weeks to

protest poor prison conditions. His case attracted worldwide attention and he

was freed from prison in November 2003, half a year early.

Yahiaoui was the nephew of

dismissed Judge Mokhtar Yahiaoui, whose open letter to President Ben Ali on

July 6, 2001, called for the constitutional principle of the independence of

the judiciary to be respected. The letter was first published on Zoheir

Yahiaoui’s Web site. After Zouheir Yahiaoui’s arrest, Judge Yahiaoui’s

relatives were harassed, prevented from traveling, and physically assaulted.

Zoheir Yahiaoui died in Tunis on March 13, 2005, at the age

of thirty-six, of a heart attack. The Web site, http://www.tunezine.com, is

still online, and is still blocked in Tunisia.³⁹⁸

Mohamed Abou

Mohamed Abou is well known in civil society circles in Tunis. He is a founding member of the International Association for Solidarity with

Political Prisoners and the Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers,

both of them Tunisian human rights organizations the government has refused to

recognize. He is also a member of the executive bureau of an unrecognized

political party, the Congress for the Republic.

Abou is currently serving a three-year prison sentence. The

apparent motive for his arrest on March 1, 2005, was an article he published

online the night before on the banned Web site http://www.tunisnews.com. Abou’s

article protested President Ben Ali’s invitation of Israeli Prime Minister

Ariel Sharon to attend WSIS in November 2005. Comparing Ben Ali unfavorably to Sharon, he argued that if the latter abused Palestinians’ rights, at least he respected

his own people and his own courts, unlike Ben Ali. It further accused Ben Ali

and his family of corruption. As if to disguise its persecution of Abou for his

lese majesté, the government prosecuted Abou on dubious charges stemming from

his alleged assault a female lawyer in 2002 and for publishing an article six

months earlier critical of prison conditions in Tunisia.

On March 16, Abou appeared before an investigating judge at

the Palace of Justice in Tunis to answer charges of “publishing false news

capable of disturbing the public order,” libeling the justice system, inciting

the public to violate the law, and publishing writings “capable of disturbing

the public order,” pursuant to Articles 42, 44, 49,

51, 68 and 72 of the Press Code and Article 121 of the Penal Code. The charges

referred to an article he had published on http://www.tunisnews.com in

August 2004, headlined “Abu Ghraib of Iraq, Abu Ghraib of Tunisia”-a play on

words that could also be read in Arabic as “Abu Ghraib of Iraq and the Strange

Man of Tunisia,” i.e., President Ben Ali.

On April 29, Judge Mehrez Hammami,

of the Tunis Court of First Instance, sentenced Abou to eighteen months

in prison for “insulting the judiciary” and publishing material “likely to

disturb the public order,” offenses under the press and penal codes,

respectively.

A week earlier Abou was charged

with injuring fellow lawyer Dalila Mrad during an altercation that occurred in

June 2002. Mrad told Human Rights Watch that she had repeatedly lobbied the

court after the incident, without success, to bring her complaint to trial. It

was only after Abou’s critical articles appeared that the court scheduled the

case.³⁹⁹ Whatever the merits of her claim, it is at best a striking

coincidence that the court scheduled the case only after Abou’s critical

articles appeared. In a separate hearing also held on April 28, Judge

Hammami sentenced Abou to two years in prison for the assault charge.

On June 20, after a hearing during which Abou was only

allowed to say “yes” or “no” in response to questions, a Tunisian appeals court

confirmed his sentence. Since this hearing, Abou has told his wife and lawyers

that he no longer wished to pursue his right to appeal, saying “he no longer

wants to participate in this bad piece of theatre.”⁴⁰⁰

He remains in prison at Le Kef. “When I see him,” his wife Samia told Human

Rights Watch, “his clothes are full of the blood of bugs from his mattress.”

The Youths of Zarzis and Ariana

Since 2002, authorities have rounded up youths in different

parts of the country, accusing them of planning to join jihadist movements and

preparing terrorist attacks. Almost all of those tried so far have been

convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. In most cases, the convictions

were based heavily on the statements given to the police that the defendants

later contested-without success-on the grounds that they had been extracted

through torture or through threats of torture.

In at least two cases, the evidence for the prosecution

included material that the defendants had allegedly downloaded from the

Internet and that the court considered as evidence of their criminal

intentions. In the context of criminal proceedings that otherwise respect the

rights of the defendants, such material might be properly considered as

evidence of intent, albeit quite circumstantial evidence. But in the context of

the gross abuses that marked these trials, the prosecution’s use of this

material as evidence has spurred concerns that the ultimate effect will be to

further intimidate Internet users and providers.

On April 6, 2004, a Tunis court sentenced six young men from

the governorate of Medenine in the south of the country to

nineteen-year-and-three-month prison terms for plotting terrorist attacks, and

two defendants in absentia to twenty-six year terms on similar charges. The

defendants in custody claimed they had been tortured into confessing and into

implicating each other, and that the police had falsified the place and date of

their arrest. The judge refused to investigate these allegations, even though

these “confessions” constituted the main piece of evidence in the file.⁴⁰¹

In addition to their own statements, the prosecution

produced a number of pages printed out from various Web sites that had

allegedly been confiscated from the defendants upon their arrest. These

included information on jihad, instructions on how to manufacture explosives,

information about Kalashnikovs and other arms, a document concerning the

simulation of an attack against the National Guard post in Zarzis using a

bazooka gun, and a document on how to fraudulently use magnetic cards. The

lawyers for the defense argued that there was no evidence their clients had

printed out these pages, and that while the defendants admitted to having an interest

in “the resistance” in Palestine and elsewhere, they denied conspiring to

manufacture explosives or carry out attacks.

In another case, a group of thirteen youths, mostly from the

area of Ariana, near Tunis, were convicted in June 2004 of belonging to a

terrorist group and plotting attacks. As in the Zarzis case, the defendants

alleged that they had been tortured into signing statements before the police

and subjected to various violations of their right to a fair trial. While the

defendants acknowledged an interest in the “resistance” by Muslims in places

like Iraq, Palestine, and Chechnya, they denied having taken any steps toward

forming a terrorist organization or toward committing acts of political

violence.⁴⁰²

The Ariana prosecution, like that of the Zarzis group,

relied heavily on the contested confessions of the defendants, but it also

produced, as evidence of the defendants’ criminal intent, inflammatory content

that the defendants had allegedly downloaded from the Internet. In this case,

the material consisted of compact disks (CDs) allegedly seized from one or more

of the defendants. The content of the CDs included materials on jihad, Chechnya, and Palestine, but also instructions on manufacturing explosives. The police confiscated

the hard drive of a computer at the home of defendant Hichem Saadi at the time

of his arrest on February 5, 2003, according to the National Council for Human

Rights in Tunisia, an independent rights group. The hard drive does not appear

on the list of objects seized and has not been returned since, the Council

reported.⁴⁰³

Abdallah Zouari

Authorities have effectively banned former political

prisoner and journalist Abdallah Zouari from accessing Internet cafés. While

the case appears to be unique in this respect, the treatment of Zouari

nevertheless illustrates the determination of authorities to control the use of

the Internet as a tool of nonviolent political dissent.

Since Zouari completed an eleven-year prison sentence in

2002, authorities have sought to silence and punish him because of his

outspoken criticism of government policies, notably on human rights. Zouari has

been jailed three times, confined to a rural district in Medenine, 500

kilometers from his family’s home in suburban Tunis, and placed under round-the-clock

police surveillance.

When arrested in 1991, Zouari was a high school Arabic

teacher and a journalist with al-Fajr, an organ of the Islamist Nahdha

party. His arrest was part of a massive crackdown authorities launched against

that party after deciding to outlaw it. Zouari was among the Nahdha figures

convicted in a mass military court trial the following year on charges of

attempting to overthrow the state. Organizations that observed the trial,

including Human Rights Watch, criticized it as patently unfair at the time.⁴⁰⁴

Zouari was sentenced to eleven years in prison and five

years of “administrative control.” Upon his release, authorities ordered him to

reside in Hassi Jerbi, in Medenine province, a locality to which he had no

connection other than that his wife’s family comes from there. Zouari grew up

in the Monastir area and was living at the time of his 1991 arrest in suburban Tunis, where his wife and four of his children continue to live. Tunis is listed as the

place of residence on their identification cards, and the children attend

school there.

Although released political prisoners in Tunisia commonly confront a range of arbitrary restrictions, the de facto internal banishment

of an ex-prisoner is rare. This measure seems tailored in Zouari’s case to

silence someone who kept meticulous records of prison conditions and who made

clear that a decade behind bars had not blunted his determination to publish

criticism of government policies and collaborate openly with rights groups.

Tunisian authorities insisted, in a statement sent to Human

Rights Watch dated January 28, 2005, that the penal code gave the interior

minister discretion to determine Zouari’s place of residence as part of his

administrative control. They added that Zouari’s three convictions since 2002

were pronounced by the courts for infractions of Tunisian law and that each was

confirmed on appeal. This showed, they said, that Zouari’s case had nothing to

do with the “freedom to ‘live a normal life with his family.’”

But the broader treatment of Zouari leaves little doubt that

authorities are persecuting him because of his outspokenness on politics and

human rights.

Zouari filed an appeal before an administrative court of his

confinement shortly after it was imposed in 2002, arguing that any post-prison

administrative control should not include separating him from his family,

social milieu, and employment prospects. More than three years later, Zouari is

still waiting for a review of his appeal. He has staged hunger strikes, most

recently in September 2005, to protest the rejection of his numerous written

requests to authorities for permission to visit his family.

On December 11, 2004, a Human Rights Watch representative

observed what were clearly plainclothes police stationed at three different

posts within 100 meters of Zouari’s house. Zouari said they are there around

the clock, and openly trail him by car whenever he leaves the village.

Unable to establish an Internet connection from his house,

Zouari in the past tried sending and receiving information from Internet cafés

in the nearby city of Zarzis. But on January 22, 2005, after Zouari had used an

Internet café to disseminate news of his impending hunger strike, the district

chief of security reportedly ordered the owners of all four of the cafés in

Zarzis to deny him access. Zouari said this information was provided to him by

one of the café owners. On subsequent efforts to enter Internet cafés Zouari

has been turned back at the door.

In 2003, Zouari went to prison for protesting the denial of

access to an Internet café. On April 19 of that year, Aïda Dhouib, the owner of

one of the Internet cafés in Zarzis, apparently on police instructions,

prevented Zouari from using a computer in her café. When Zouari filed a

complaint for denial of services, the owner charged him with defaming her, an

accusation he denies. A cantonal court in July 2003 convicted Zouari of

defamation and sentenced him to four months in prison, even though the supposed

victim did not appear in court. His own complaint was dismissed.

While free on appeal, Zouari was arrested on August 17,

2003, and made to serve the sentence. The police detained him on charges of

violating his administrative control when he traveled, together with three

visiting human rights lawyers, to the market town of Ben Ghardane, some 40

kilometers from his home. Zouari said at the time that he had believed that he

was allowed to go to Ben Ghardane, especially after traveling there on previous

occasions, under close police surveillance, without consequences. On August 29,

2003, a cantonal court gave Zouari a nine-month sentence for violating his

administrative control, under Article 150 of the penal code. Zouari served that

term consecutively with his earlier four-month sentence for defamation, and was

freed in September 2004. In 2002, Zouari had also served two months of an

eight-month sentence on an earlier charge of violating his administrative

control, before being released for “humanitarian reasons.”

Conclusion

Tunisia has made progress in increasing access to the

Internet over the past years. It has lifted bans on some Web sites. But it

continues to flout its national and international legal commitments to free

expression, the right to access information, and the right to privacy by

censoring the Internet, imprisoning writers for expressing their views online,

and imposing undue regulations on its ISPs and Internet cafés. Hosting the

second phase of WSIS in November 2005 affords Tunisia an opportunity to present

itself as a leader in the global effort to spread the benefits of the

information society around the world. Toward that end, the government of Tunisia should :

• Continue to invest in expanding

  access to the Internet, and refrain from diverting funds reserved for

  improving networks to improve surveillance or censorship technology.

• Immediately and unconditionally release Mohamed Abou, who

  was imprisoned for peacefully expressing his opinions.

• Scrupulously respect the rights of suspects and defendants

  in criminal cases, including counter-terrorism cases, and prohibit the use

  of evidence obtained by torture or without legal authorization. In cases

  where such abuses have taken place, tainting most of the directly relevant

  evidence, the court should not justify convictions on circumstantial

  evidence such as Web sites the defendants may or may not have visited. The

  Ariana and Zarzis defendants should be granted a new and fair trial, where

  their allegations of torture and procedural irregularities are thoroughly

  considered, and they should be convicted only if there is evidence that

  they were preparing to commit acts of violence or other legitimately

  criminal acts, not just that they visited inflammatory Web sites.

• Allow free and unimpeded access

  to Internet cafés and Internet-connected libraries for all, in particular

  Abdallah Zouari whom authorities have effectively banned from accessint

  Internet cafés, and do not compel such

  businesses to provide customer records without a specific court order

  based on a compelling and particularized showing of need in relation to

  the commission of a crime.

• Stop blocking Web sites for their political or their human

  rights content, including the following sites : http://www.ltdh.org,

  http://www.rsf.fr, http://www.rsf.org, http://www.nahdha.net,

  http://www.mdstunisie.org, http://perso.infonie.fr/tunisie-ugtef,

  http://www.tunisie2004.net, http://www.cprtunisie.com,

  http://www.tunisnews.net, http://www.tunezine.com,

  http://www.perspectivestunisiennes.net, http://www.kalimatunisie.com, http://www.rezoweb.com/forum/politi...,

  http://www.globalprevention.com/mar..., http://www.nawaat.org,

  http://www.albadil.org, http://www.verite-action.org,

  http://www.alternatives-citoyennes...., http://tounes.naros.info,

  http://www.maghreb-ddh.org, http://www.islamonline.net,

  http://www.reveiltunisien.org, http://www.dabbour.net, and http://www.zarzis.org.

• Repeal laws that abridge the

  right to privacy or the right to freely access or disseminate information

  or opinions. In particular, reform the press and penal

  codes-particularly articles 42, 43, 44, 47,49,

  50, 51, 52, 53, 68, 72, and 121-to remove all criminal penalties

  for libel, spreading “false news,” and publishing material that “disrupts

  the public order.” Such laws are incompatible with the right to freedom of

  expression.

• Seek to pass legislation that

  provides strict guarantees of the privacy of electronic communications,

  and that allows monitoring of email or other forms of electronic

  communication unless authorized by an independent court upon a compelling

  and particularized showing of need in relation to the commission of a

  crime.

• In accordance with international

  standards, seek to pass legislation that

o

Affirmatively protects the right of writers to advocate

nonviolent change of government policies or the government itself ;criticize

or insult the nation, the government, its symbols, or officials ; and

communicate information about alleged violations of international human rights

and humanitarian law.

o

Removes unlimited liability from private ISPs for carrying

illegal content.

o

Permits the free use of encryption and other techniques to ensure

the privacy of online communications. Law enforcement agencies should be

allowed to decrypt private communications only upon authorization by an

independent court upon a compelling and particularized showing of need in

relation to the commission of a crime.

• Cease intimidation and harassment of online writers who express

  critical opinions or report on human rights violations. The right to freedom of

  expression precludes surveillance or intimidation of online journalists and

  monitoring or disruption of their communications via electronic or other media.

---

[333] Human

Rights Watch interview with Mokhtar Yahyaoui, Tunis, September 8, 2005.

[334] Human

Rights Watch interview with Ridha Barkati, Tunis, September 8, 2005.

[335]

Statement made at a meeting between Tunisian Minister of Communications

Technology Montasser Ouaili and the IFEX Tunisia

Monitoring Group, Tunis, September 7, 2005. Human Rights Watch attended

as an observer.

[336] http://www.smsitunis2005.org/platef...,

accessed October 12, 2005.

[337] Human

Rights Watch, The Internet in the Mideast and North Africa

[338] ATI Web

site, http://www.ati.nat.tn/stats/. Included

in this figure are 69,915 subscriptions, 9,178 subscriptions for high-speed

access, and 118,504 email accounts from domains ending in the .tn suffix. The

number of users may be higher. At a September 7, 2005, meeting between Tunisian

Minister of Communications Technology Montasser

Ouaili and free expression and human rights groups in Tunis, the

minister estimated there were more than 1 million people online in Tunisia.

[339] Letter

from Riadh Dridi, chargé d’affairs a.i. at the Embassy of Tunisia to the United States, to Human Rights Watch, August 10, 2005.

[340] Ibid.

[341]

Government figures vary. The Tunisian Embassy in Washington, D.C., put the

number at “over eighty,” the Minister of Communications Technologies put the

number at sixty.

[342] Letter

from Chargé d’Affairs Dridi to Human Rights Watch.

[343] Ibid.

[344] Meeting

with Tunisian Minister of Communications Technology Montasser

Ouaili.

[345] Letter

from Chargé d’Affairs Dridi to Human Rights Watch.

[346] Meeting

with Tunisian Minister of Communicaitions Technology Montasser Ouaili.

[347] See

Human Rights Watch, The Internet in the Mideast and North Africa : Tunisia,

http://hrw.org/advocacy/internet/me....

[348] PlaNet

Tunisie Press Release, “PlaNet Tunisie partenaire Wanadoo...,” April 8, 2005, http://www.babnet.net/rttdetail-2438.asp, accessed

September 25, 2005 ; on protests, see, for example, “RSF Expresses

Concern over Proposed ISP Partnership in Tunisia,” Letter from Robert Ménard, Secretary-General of Reporters sans

frontières, to Oliver Sichel, the director general of the Wanadoo Internet

company, http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view..., accessed September 25,

2005.

[349] http://www.wanadoo.tn/Offre_wanadoo..., accessed

September 25, 2005.

[350] See the

company Web sites, at http://www.gnet.tn/,

http://www.hexabyte.tn/, http://www.topnet.tn/, and http://www.tunet.tn/,

respectively, accessed September 25, 2005.

[351] Human

Rights Watch, The Internet in the Mideast and North Africa.

[352] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

(ICCPR), G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc.

A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force Mar. 23, 1976, article 19,

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a..., accessed September 3, 2005.

[353] African

(Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3 rev. 5, 21

I.L.M. 58 (1982), Adopted June 27, 1981, entered into force October 21, 1986. http://www.africa-union.org/Officia...,

accessed September 24, 2005.

[354] “Des traites ratifies par le President de la Republique et approuves par la

Chambre des deputes ont une autorite superieure a celle des lois.” The Constitution of the Republic of Tunisia, Article 32, http://www.tunisieinfo.com/referenc...,

accessed September 24, 2005.

[355]

Articles 8 and 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of Tunisia, Article 9 as

amended in 2002, http://www.referendum-tunisie.org/e...,

accessed September 24, 2005.

[356]

Constitution of the Republic of Tunisia, Article 5, as amended in 2002, http://www.referendum-tunisie.org/e...,

accessed September 24, 2005.

[357]

Tunisian Minister of Justice and Human Rights Bechir Tekkari stated this in the

September 7, 2005, meeting with the World Association of Community Radio

Broadcasters, Article 19, the International Publishers’ Association, and the

World Press Freedom Committee, which Human Rights Watch attended as an

observer.

[358] Cited

in “Attacks on the Press, Tunisia-2001,” The Committee to Protect Journalists,

http://www.cpj.org/attacks01/mideas..., accessed June 24, 2005.

[359] Letter

from Chargé d’Affairs Dridi to Human Rights Watch. Tunisia, in a letter sent in

2000 to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, denied that the Press Law applies

to the Internet. See letter dated May 26, 2000, from the Permanent

Representative of Tunisia to the United Nations Office at Geneva, addressed to

the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 14, 2000,

E/CN.4/2001/4, attaching the reply of the Tunisian Government to the report of

the Special Rapporteur : “In referring to Internet access, it is regrettable

that the Special Rapporteur misinterpreted certain legal texts. He states,

without any basis in legal precedent or administrative regulations, that the

regime of responsibility laid down by the Press Code is applicable to the

Internet.” http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huri...,

accessed October 4, 2005.

[360] Law Number 75-32 of April 1975, as amended in 1993,

http://recherche.legisnet.com/FMPro, accessed September 25, 2005.

[361] See,

for example, Committee to Protect Journalists, “Attacks on the Press,

2001-Tunisia,” http://www.cpj.org/attacks01/mideas...,

accessed September 25, 2005 ; For more on local reaction to the changes, see

Ligue Tunisienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme, “Report on the Freedom

of Information in Tunisia,”

http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/sm..., accessed

September 24, 2005 ; Internews, “Arab Media Research : Tunisia,”

http://www.internews.org/arab_media..., accessed September

24, 2005.

[362] Ligue Tunisienne pour la Défense des Droits de

l’Homme, “Report on the Freedom of Information in Tunisia,”

http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/sm...

[363] Annual

General Assembly Report of the Human Rights Committee, UN Doc. A/50/40,

October 3, 1995, para. 89, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/...,

accessed September 24, 2005.

[364] Office

of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, CCPR General Comment 10 : Freedom of

Expression (Art. 19) : June 29, 1983, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/...,

accessed September 21, 2005.

[365] Annual Report to the UN Commission on Human Rights,

Promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2000/63, para. 205.

[366] The

text of the law is online in French at

http://www.jurisitetunisie.com/tuni.... For a

critique of the law, see Amnesty International, “Tunisia : New Draft

‘Anti-Terrorism’ Law Will Further Undermine Human Rights,” Amnesty

International Briefing Note to the European Union EU-Tunisia Association

Council, September 30, 2003, http://web.amnesty.org/library/Inde...,

accessed September 24, 2005.

[367] Ibid.

[368] ICCPR, Article 20(2).

[369] Arrêté du ministre des communications du 22 mars 1997, portant

approbation du cahier des charges fixant les clauses particulières à la mise en

œuvre et l’exploitation des services à valeur ajoutée des télécommunications de

type INTERNET.

[370] Décret no. 97-501 du 14 mars 1997 relatif aux services à valeur

ajoutée des télécommunications.

[371] Arrêté du ministre des communications du 9 septembre 1997 fixant les

conditions d’utilisation du cryptage dans l’exploitation des services à valeur

ajoutée des télécommunications.

[372] Décret n° 2001-2727 du 20 novembre 2001, fixant les

conditions et les procédures d’utilisation des moyens ou des services de

cryptage à travers les réseaux des télécommunications, ainsi que l’exercice des

activités y afférentes, http://www.certification.tn/decret4.htm.

[373] Letter

from Chargé d’Affairs Dridi to Human Rights Watch.

[374] Arrêté du ministre des communications du 9 septembre 1997 fixant les

conditions d’utilisation du cryptage dans l’exploitation des services à valeur

ajoutée des télécommunications.

[375] Letter

from Chargé d’Affairs Dridi to Human Rights Watch.

[376] Meeting

between Tunisian Minister of Communications Technology Montasser

Ouaili and free expression and human rights groups, Tunis, September 7,

2005.

[377] Human

Rights Watch, The Internet in the Mideast and North Africa.

[378] Ibid.

[379] Report

of Mr. Abid Hussain, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the

right to freedom of opinion and expression : Report on the mission to Tunisia, 23 February 2000, E/CN.4/2000/63/Add.4, http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huri...

[380] Special

Rapporteur’s report, p.11, para. 46.

[381]

Conducted in January 2005 by the ONI in cooperation with the free expression

groups collectively known as the Tunisia Monitoring Group, available at “Tunisia : Freedom of Expression Under Siege,” http://www.ifex.org/download/en/Fre....

[382] The Web

site of the French newspaper Le Figaro was also available.

[383] Members

of the Tunisia Monitoring Group, who kindly allowed a Human Rights Watch

researcher to accompany them to Tunisia as an observer, include Article 19, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression,

Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, Index on Censorship, International

Federation of Journalists, International Federation of Library Association and

Institutions, International Publishers’ Association, Journaliste en Danger,

Media Institute of Southern Africa, Norwegian PEN, Writers in Prison Committee

of International PEN, World Association of Newspapers, World Press Freedom

Committee, and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters. The

results of their January 2005 tests are available at “Freedom of

Expression Under Siege,” op. cit.

[384]

Interestingly, when a Human Rights Watch researcher tried to search for

“tunisnews” on Google and Yahoo ! from Tunis, he received the same response as

when trying to access a site tests confirmed as blocked :

http://www.google.com/search?q=TUNI... ;

http://www.yahoo.com/_ylh=X3oDMTEwd....

[385] See,

for example, Open Net Initiative, Country Study : Internet Filtering in Iran, 2004-2005, June 21, 2005.

[386] Human

Rights Watch checked SmartFilter’s classification of these sites using Secure

Computing’s SmartFilterWhere tool, located at http://www.securecomputing.com/sfwh...,

September 26, 2005. http://www.lgf.org.uk, the Web site of the U.K.-based

Lesbian & Gay Foundation, was blocked in Tunisia in early September 2005,

but by the end of the month, it was off SmartFilter’s lists.

[387] Ibid.

[388] That

some proxies on SmartFilter’s lists are still available in Tunisia suggests that Tunisia may be using an older version of the software. New proxy servers

spring up quickly as old ones are blocked.

[389]

Classifications checked using Secure Computing’s SmartFilterWhere tool,

September 26, 2005.

[390]

Statement made at a meeting between Tunisian Minister of Communications

Technology Montasser Ouaili and free

expression and human rights groups, Tunis, September 7, 2005.

[391] Arrêté du Ministre des Communications du 10

décembre 1998 complétant l’arrêté du 19 mars 1998, portant approbation du

cahier des charges fixant les conditions techniques et administratives

d’exploitation des Centres Publics des Télécommunications,

http://www.sospublinet.tn/cahier.htm, accessed September 26, 2005.

[392] e.g.

Human Rights Watch, The Internet in the Mideast and North Africa, and

IFEX, “Tunisia : Freedom of Expression Under Siege.”

[393] Meeting

between the minister of communications technology and free expression and human

rights groups, Tunis, September 7, 2005.

[394] Sihem Bensedrine, “La navigation sous haute surveillance,” Kalima

Tunisie, http://www.kalimatunisie.com/html/n...,

accessed October 3, 2005.

[395] Human

Rights Watch interview with Sihem Bensedrine, Tunis, September 8, 2005.

[396] See Human

Rights Watch, “Tunisia : Release Urged for Online Magazine Editor,” June 6,

2002, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/06...,

accessed September 26, 2005.

[397] Ibid.

[398] Yahiaoui received several awards in recognition of his

courage, including, in 2004, the Hellman-Hammett award for persecuted writers.

Human Rights Watch administers the Hellman/Hammett grant program for writers

around the world who have been victims of political persecution and are in

financial need. The grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian

Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her long-term companion, the

novelist Dashiell Hammett. See http://www.hrw.org/about/info/helha....

[399] Human

Rights Watch interview with Dalila Mrad, Tunis, April 28, 2005. Members of Abou’s defense team told Human Rights Watch that

in the incident, Abou had merely shoved Mrad in response to her assaulting him,

but had caused her no lasting injury. They further claimed that the government

doctor who initially examined her after the altercation with Abou found only

that she was in a distressed mental state. The medical report used as evidence

in Abou’s trail, defense lawyers said, was issued following an traffic accident

she had in 2003, and that she had received an insurance payment of 40,000

Tunisian dinars ($29,902) in compensation for injuries sustained by her and her

children in this accident. (Human Rights Watch interview with Leila Ben

Mahmoud, attorney for Mohamed Abou, Tunis, September 10, 2005.)

[400] Human

Rights Watch interview with Samia Hammouda Abou, Tunis, September 10, 2005.

[401] The six

defendants in custody were Omar Farouk Chalendi, Hamza Mahrouk, Omar Rached,

Ridha Brahim, Abdelghaffar Guiza and Aymen M’charek. Each got nineteen years

and three months in prison and five years of administrative control, for

“forming a criminal group aiming to harm persons and property through

intimidation and terror (in essence, criminal conspiracy to commit

terrorist acts) ; manufacture, assembly, transport, and storing of materials

used in explosives ; and possession without authorization of tools and materials

that would allow the assembly of explosive devices, for theft and attempted

theft, and holding meetings without authorization.” Two defendants who were

convicted in absentia are believed to be living in Europe. A ninth, who

was 17 at the time of his arrest, Abderrezak Bourguiba, was sentenced in April

2004 by a court for minors to twenty-five months in prison. In July 2004, an

appeals court reduced the sentences for the six men to thirteen years, and

another appeals court reduced Bourguiba’s sentence to twenty-four months.

[402] The

defendants, Hichem Saadi, Anis Hedhili, Riadh Laouati, Kamel Ben Rejeb, Kabil

Naceri, Mohammed Ayari, Ahmed Kasri, Ali Kalaï, Bilal Beldi, Hassen Mraïdi,

Sami Bouras, Sabri Ounaïess, and Mohamed Oualid Ennaifer (in absentia),

were tried in two separate trials before the Tunis Court. All of them denied

belonging to a terrorist group or planning any violent action of any kind. The

courts convicted all of them in June 2004, sentencing them to up to sixteen

years in prison and ten years of administrative control. In May 2005, the

appeals court reduced the longest sentence to ten years in prison.

[403]

National Council for Liberties in Tunisia, communiqué, June 15, 2005.

[404] Middle

East Watch (now Human Rights Watch/Middle East and North Africa), “Tunisia : Military Courts that Sentenced Islamist Leaders Violated Fair-Trial Norms,” A

Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 4, no. 9, October 1992 [online]

http://hrw.org/reports/pdfs/t/tunis....