Tunisia frees last political prisoners

Tunisian prisons 'emptied of political prisoners' weeks after fall of Ben Ali's authoritarian regime.

Middle East Online

Demand met: 'freedom for all the prisoners' TUNIS - Tunisia freed Wednesday the last of its political prisoners under an amnesty granted after the fall president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January, a prisoner rights activist said. The remaining prisoners were released in batches since Monday under an amnesty that came into force on February 19, said International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners secretary general Samir Ben Omar. "The last political prisoners in Tunisia were freed on Wednesday," Omar said, adding they included people charged under the previous regime's terrorism laws. "In total about 800 political prisoners have been freed in groups since Monday evening," he said. "Between 300 and 400 were freed on Wednesday," he said, adding: "Tunisian prisons have been emptied of political prisoners." The amnesty was announced on January 20, nearly a week after the fall of the authoritarian Ben Ali in an uprising that sparked similar protests across the Arab world. It applied to "all those who were imprisoned or prosecuted for crimes as a result of their political or trade union activities," the official TAP news agency reported. Justice authorities had said days before the amnesty became official that about 3,000 prisoners had been conditionally released. The announcement of the amnesty was one of the first acts by the interim government appointed when Ben Ali ended his 23 years in power on January 14 by fleeing to Saudi Arabia. Among those who were freed were "victims of the terrorism law applied by the Ben Ali regime to say that it was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism," Omar said. They included Saber Ragoubi, a Salafist Muslim sentenced to death for terrorism, he said. He and his co-accused were found guilty of involvement in clashes with security forces between December 2006 and January 2007 that left 14 people dead, including a security agent, according to the official toll. Ragoubi had denied the charges and Amnesty International said his trial had been unfair and he said he was tortured in custody. Eight of his co-accused were sentenced to life in prison and 19 others to jail terms of up to 30 years. Most were found guilty of assassination and belonging to a terrorist group whose leaders, a Mauritanian and three Tunisians, were killed in the clashes. Omar said around a dozen ordinary prisoners also sentenced under terrorism laws remained in prison and his organisation would continue to raise their cases with the authorities. Some of the political prisoners freed earlier have told of torture and bad treatment. Some died in jail and others were missing, Tunisia's Association to Combat Torture has said. The new administration has also opened the way for the legalisation of political groups banned under Ben Ali and the return of exiles. Islamist movement Ennahda (Awakening) announced Tuesday it had finally been granted legal status, 30 years after it was formed. Thousands of Islamist activists and sympathisers were among those arrested in the 1990s, as Ben Ali's government claimed to be tackling extremism, and many went into exile. Despite introducing unprecedented freedoms and pledging elections by mid-July, the interim administration has been heavily criticised, facing weeks of protests including over its inclusion of key figures from Ben Ali's regime. Interim prime minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, who held the same post under Ben Ali, quit on Sunday after clashes at weekend anti-government demonstrations left five people dead. Two ministers followed him on Monday and three more on Tuesday.