125 Tunisia Ejects Amnesty International Representative

In transit, now, but just wanted to pass on this email I received today, especially since I have met Yves Steiner, a board member of Amnesty’s Switzerland chapter, a few times:

Nearly fifty plain clothed police agents made their way on Sunday afternoon to the Annual General Meeting of Amnesty International-Tunisia in the suburbs of Tunis and forced Yves Steiner of the board Amnesty International-Switzerland to follow them without any explanation or warrant.

Steiner was later ordered to leave the country immediately, according to reliable sources in Tunis.

Relations between Tunisia and Switzerland deteriorated at the opening of WSIS in mid-November. The opening speech made by the Swiss president in which he called on the need to respect freedom of expression inside and outside the WSIS venue prompted anger among Tunisian officials and led the state-owned TV to stop its live coverage of the the opening session of WSIS.

AI-Tunisia strongly condemned “the aggression against its friend and guest Yves Steiner,” in a statement issued on Sunday evening.

“This is a violation of all laws and basic standards of decency. We call on all representatives of national and international civil society and human rights defenders to denounce heavy-handed methods and to pressure the Tunisian authorities to put an end to the use of such methods,” said AI-Tunisia.

[tags]Tunisia, tunisie, Amnesty International[/tags]

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  1. […] Late on this, but I wanted to note a more important aspect to the story of the crackdown on Amnesty International in Tunisia than the ejection of a Swiss representative. Et? arr?t? le 22 mai 2006 ? 12h30 ? la porte du (CHU) Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Farhat Hached de Sousse (lieu de travail) par un agent en civil qui m’a montr? ses papiers, mais n’avait ni convocation, ni mandat. N’ayant pas obtemp?r?, j’ai ?t? conduit de force vers une voiture de police banalis?e et puis conduit ? la s?ret? nationale de Sousse. On m’a entre-temps enlev? ma carte d’identit? et mon t?l?phone portable. […]

    Pingback by The Skeptic ?????? » Former Tunisian Amnesty International President Arrested — June 11, 2006 #

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