Radhia Nasraoui suspends her hunger strike

Tunisian lawyer Radhia Nasraoui has „suspended a hunger strike she began 38 days ago to press for her journalist husband Hamma Hammamis release from jail. She told a press conference at her home in Tunis that her decision to halt the fast she began on 26 June was in response to the many "appeals from all her friends. They all urged me to save my health to be able to continue the fight for Tunisia", she said. Radhia Nasraoui also announced that she hoped to found an „association against torture and wanted to mark 2 February - the first trial date of her husband, Hammami, political and managing editor of Al-Badil - as a day for judicial independence in Tunisia. In recent weeks the French media has given wide coverage to her hunger strike and the deterioration in her health, making the French and Tunisian public aware of her husband‚s case and more generally of human rights abuses in Tunisia. She visited France from 29 July to 1 August, taking her youngest daughter Sarra, aged three, who the previous week was twice prevented from leaving Tunisia. ______________________________________________________________ 06.27.2002 - Support for Radhia Nasraoui in her hunger strike Reporters Without Borders supports Tunisian lawyer Radhia Nasraoui, who has been on hunger strike since 26 June in effort to force the authorities to free her husband, jailed left-wing activist and journalist Hamma Hammami. "It is outrageous that someone has to go to such lengths to get their rights and those of their family respected," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. Nasraoui started the hunger strike at her home in Tunis to protest against the imprisonment of her husband, who is leader of the banned Tunisian Communist Workers' Party (PCOT) and managing editor of the party newspaper El Badil. "I am doing this to try to win the immediate and unconditional release of someone imprisoned for his opinions and to protest against the ill-treatment he and his family have suffered," she said. "Hamma has never been able to see his family in jail in humane conditions. Two grills separate him from visitors and several guards are always present. He has still not been allowed to see his daughter Sarra, who was born while he was living in hiding." Hammami was sentenced on 31 March to three years and two months in prison for subversion by a Tunis appeals court. Two of his associates, Abdeljabar Madouri and Samir Taamallah, were jailed for respectively three years and nine months and one year and nine months. They were accused of belonging to and operating an illegal organisation (the PCOT), distributing leaflets, "putting out false news," holding illegal meetings and inciting rebellion and lawbreaking. They had initially each been sentenced in 1999 to nine years and three months in prison. They came out of hiding after four years on 2 February this year when, after a show trial, their sentences were confirmed. In 1992, Hammami was given a suspended jail sentence of two years and eight months and fined 7,000 dinars for "putting out false news" and the paper stopped publishing. Statement by Radhia Nasraoui, 26 June 02: "I am going on hunger strike" "My husband Hamma Hammami, spokesman for the Tunisian Communist Workers' Party (PCOT), an unauthorised political party, and managing editor of the banned newspaper El Badil, has been serving a prison sentence of three years and two months since 2 February at the civil prison in Tunis for being a member of the PCOT. "Since his arrest, he has been ill-treated, held on death row with three common law prisoners known as informers, and had his rights violated. He had to go on hunger strike to get transferred to another part of the prison. He has been allowed virtually no visits from his lawyers since he was arrested. I personally, and as a lawyer myself, have not been allowed to see him since 6 April. "Hamma has never been allowed to see his family in humane conditions. Two grills separate him from visitors and two guards are always present. He has still not been allowed to see his daughter Sarra, who was born while he was in hiding. "For years now, my daughters have been continually deprived of the presence of their father, who has been forced to live underground or has been in prison. They have also been closely followed by the police during that time and one of them, Nadia, was nearly kidnapped. Another, Oussaima, has frequently been terrorised by the secret police. Sarra, as a baby, has even been under surveillance by police outside the nursery where she was. "My children have never felt secure. Their childhood has been traumatic, with police breaking down the door of our apartment after midnight, interrogation of Nadia late at night while she was in bed and in my absence and a physical attack on Oussaima the day of her father's trial on 2 February. "Legal officials have never acted on my many complaints about these episodes. – To demand the immediate and unconditional release of my husband, who is a prisoner of conscience. – To protest against the physical and moral torture he has been subjected to since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali came to power. – To protest against the constant mental torture suffered by my daughters. "I am starting a hunger strike from today, 26 June, the World Day Against Torture." Contact: Radhia Nasraoui, Résidence Hallouma Bent El-Fakhri, rue des Coings, Immeuble C3, apartment 6, second floor, El Manar 1 (across from Delta Medical), Tunis. Phone: (216) 9833-9960 (in Tunisia), and in France: (33) 1 4886-3620. E-mail: [email protected]