WASHINGTON (IPS) – The Tunisian government should stop the harassment of political prisoners after their release from jail, say rights groups in two new reports.

Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

According to both Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, the government of Tunisia often subjects ex-political prisoners to a variety of repressive measures aimed at preventing them from resuming a normal life, leaving many ex-inmates and their families as societal outcasts.
On Wednesday, HRW released a 42-page report, titled “A larger prison: Repression of former political prisoners in Tunisia,” which documents the litany of abuses, many of them arbitrary, that Tunisian authorities inflict on released prisoners.

“The government makes it impossible for former prisoners to lead normal lives. Instead it should embrace rehabilitation and reintegration policies post-release,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“When Tunisia releases political prisoners, it ensures that life resembles a larger prison defined by surveillance, threats, and a cocktail of restrictions,” added Whitson.

The overwhelming majority of inmates who are branded as political prisoners fall into two broad categories: first, those who were convicted of affiliation with the banned Islamic opposition party, Annahda; and second, those who were convicted under Tunisia’s 2003 anti-terrorism law.

Some analysts believe that Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has consolidated his power by simultaneously exploiting the outdated threat of domestic Islamist groups like Annahda and rallying support for his 2003 anti-terror legislation from international partners and domestic constituencies.

In 2002, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (SGPC), an early incarnation of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claimed responsibility for the bombing of a synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Jherba.

This attack created an important pretext for Ben Ali – who enjoys widespread support from his military – to pass a series of controversial laws in 2003, in an effort to fight transnational terrorist groups. However, critics of the measures say Ben Ali has brought security and entrenched his political power at the cost of civil liberties.

The 2003 anti-terrorism measures “mainly allow the State to put civil society under pressure and to spread fear beyond just the usual circles of Annahda followers,” said Amel Boubekeur, a resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, in an op-ed in the Huffington Post, which ran prior to Tunisia’s presidential elections last year.

“However, this enlarged anti-terrorist framework is also subsequently radicalizing a lot of young people who have never considered joining an Islamist movement before,” she added.

In contrast to the presence of transnational militant Islamist groups, “the Annahda threat is used to limit official competition of genuine political parties,” Boubekeur told IPS on Tuesday.

“During the last presidential election in 2009, the bargain [from the state] was ‘don’t complain about lack of liberties in Tunisia, because otherwise we may face the same risks that Algeria faced in the 1990s,'” Boubekeur added, reiterating the government’s allusions to neighboring Algeria’s bloody, decade-long civil war.

In a briefing released Mar. 15 called “Freed but not free: Tunisia’s former political prisoners,” Amnesty International called upon President Ben Ali to “cease the harassment and intimidation of former political prisoners and allow them to resume their lives as free individuals.”

The organization is also calling on the Tunisian authorities to release Sadok Chourou, the former president of Annahda, and “all other prisoners of conscience held for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression immediately.”

The London-based human rights organization is also asking for the unconditional and immediate release of journalist Taoufik Ben Brik.

According to Reporters Without Borders, the authorities in Tunisia have consistently harassed Ben Brik – a long time regime critic and proponent of free speech in the North African republic – through imprisonment and confiscation of travel documents, as well as intimidation and surveillance by the state’s security service for almost a decade.

Ben Brik is currently held on false charges stemming from a 2009 traffic accident, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

According to CPJ, his case highlights the states restriction on freedom of movement, one of the main techniques that the Tunisian regime uses to repress its dissidents.

According to both HRW and Amnesty International, many ex-political prisoners face great difficulty in acquiring travel documents once they are released.

Tunisia claims that a citizen wronged by the government can seek a ruling from an administrative court. But as the HRW report shows, even when this special tribunal rules that the authorities have exceeded the law and denied a passport incorrectly, the state persists in refusing to issue the document, highlighting the lack of an independent judiciary in the North African country.

HRW received no reply from the Minister of Interior and Local Development and the then-Minister of Justice and Human Rights after attempts were made seeking dialogue and official comment regarding the issues contained in their report.