More hypocrisy as Tunisia hosts international congress on digital divide

source: Reporters sans frontières

26.Oct.03 - RSF has voiced outrage that an international congress on the digital divide is being held in Tunisia, a country that is assuming an increasingly important role within international bodies regulating the Internet despite the fact that it is one of the most repressive towards its own Internet users.

The congress is being held in Tunis from 14 to 16 October 2003. It was organised by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and is viewed as a preparatory encounter for the next World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the second stage of which is scheduled to take place in Tunis in 2005.

"The WSIS is a major event for the Internet's development. The summit's member states must take action to prevent the Internet's future from being dictated by nations that repress freedom of expression," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said.

The Tunisian authorities continue to detain a cyber-dissident, Zouhair Yahyaoui. Using the pseudonym "Ettounsi", which means "The Tunisian" in Arabic, Yahyaoui founded the online magazine "TUNeZINE" in July 2001 to distribute opposition documents and thereby provide information about the fight for democracy and freedom in Tunisia. He was one of the first persons to publish a letter to the president by Judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui criticising the judicial system.

Yahyaoui was arrested by plainclothes police in an Internet cafe on 4 June 2002. He was subjected to interrogation that included three sessions of "suspension", a form of torture in which the victim is suspended by the arms with his feet barely touching the ground. On 10 July 2002, the Tunis Appeals Court sentenced him to two years in prison for "distributing false news".

Further evidence of the Tunisian government's cynicism towards the WSIS has been President Ben Ali's decision to appoint Habib Ammar to head the preparatory committee for the summit's second stage. As a former national guard commander and interior minister, Ammar actively participated in repression for many years. "During the period when he was interior minister, the ministry's facilities were transformed into a detention and torture centre," according to the organisations TRIAL and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT).

These two organisations recently lodged a criminal complaint against Ammar with the Canton of Geneva's general prosecutor, but the Prosecutor's Office shelved the complaint on the grounds that the Swiss Confederation gives immunity from arrest and detention to representatives of member states of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is organising the WSIS.

The goal of the summit is to narrow the digital divide between rich and poor countries, but it is also supposed to adopt a declaration of principle on nations' policies towards the Internet. Many non-governmental organisations specialising in human rights issues are concerned about the current draft of the declaration, which has been heavily influenced by those countries that are the most repressive with regard to the Internet.

For further information, contact the RSF Internet Desk, rue Geoffroy Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 62, fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51, e-mail: internet@rsf.org, Internet: www.rsf.org