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Al-Hayat: interview du président de la ligue tunisienne des droits de l'homme.
http://alhayat.sitecopy.com/pages/07-14/14P05.pdf

Infos tirées du site:  http://www.chez.com/tuniscom/tounes/nouvellle.htm

Marzouki après son retour au pays, est convoqué le 27/07/2000 devant le conseil de discipline du Ministère de la santé pour avoir eu un congé de  maladie, et certainement d'avoir été à l' étranger.

-Mouaada se promène dans les régions et visite ses troupes en Tunisie, le pouvoir l'observe mais le laisse faire.

-Professeur Hammam  chercheur tunisien a obtenu son passeport à Montréal Canada

-Les Tunisiens interdits de passeport par les autorités tunisiennes en France ont obtenu ce droit, un responsable tunisien à l'étranger,  espère que Salah Karkar l'obtienne prochainement ainsi que Mokni.

-Salah Karkar:

Une pétition concernant la levé de son assignation circule en Europe, même Kamel Jendoubi, Kamel JAziri, Said Lahlali, Ali Saidi l'ont signé

AFP le 13 Juillet 2000, 18h22 (heure de paris)

Arrestation d'un Tunisien porteur d'un faux passeport israélien

  ALEXANDROUPOLIS (Grèce), 13 juil (AFP) - Un ressortissant
Tunisien de Hammamet a été arrêté à la frontière gréco-turque alors
qu'il tentait de pénétrer en Grèce avec un faux passeport israélien,
a-t-on appris jeudi de source policière à Alexandroupolis (nord-est
de la Grèce).
  M. Faysal Aw-Awadi, 33 ans, qui n'est pas recherché, a indiqué
lors d'un premier interrogatoire qu'il avait acheté son faux
passeport (au nom de David Schumov) à Istanbul contre la somme de
2.000 dollars.
  Il doit comparaître prochainement devant un procureur
d'Alexandroupolis, a-t-on ajouté.

AFP

Article sur jeune afrique du 11 juillet 2000.

Ce que je crois.

Par Béchir Ben Yahmed

LUNDI 10 JUILLET

Bourguiba : « Je la prends, votre autonomie... »


L e 13 septembre prochain ? Un peu plus tard ? L’État palestinien indépendant (en réalité, il ne disposera pas de tous les attributs de l’indépendance) sera proclamé. Ce sera fait, en tout état de cause, d’ici au début du XXIe siècle, le 1er janvier 2001.


S’ils l’avaient voulu, les dirigeants palestiniens auraient pu faire accéder leur petit pays à l’autonomie dès 1978, il y a donc plus de vingt ans. Et leur indépendance, acquise plus tôt, aurait été aujourd’hui une réalité vieille de plusieurs années.


Le diplomate israélien Avi Primor, qui a fait une partie de sa carrière à Paris et en Afrique sub-saharienne, relate, en effet, dan! s ses mémoires qu’en 1978 Pierre Mendès France lui a dit son agacement devant l’intention de Begin (alors Premier ministre d’Israël) de proposer aux Palestiniens “ un statut d’autonomie ” :


“ Qu’est-ce que c’est que cette histoire, encore ? Au lieu de négocier avec les Palestiniens et de trouver une solution authentique et honorable, vous fuyez dans les formules fumeuses et pas sincères ”, reprocha Mendès à son interlocuteur. Qui lui répondit que c’était tout de même un pas en avant, et qu’à partir de l’autonomie on pouvait aller plus loin...


M endès France demeura songeur, raconte Avi Primor, et, au bout de quelques minutes, calmé, dit :


“ Vous avez peut-être raison. Je pense à l’époque où, chef du gouvernement français, j’ai sorti Bourguiba de prison et lui ai offert l’autonomie interne de la Tunisie. Outré, Bourguiba a protesté en disant : “Je vous connais, vous autres Français. Vous m’offrez l’autonomie pour éviter l’indépendance. Mais j! e la prends, votre autonomie. Et je vais vous montrer ce que je saurai en faire.” ” Bourguiba n’était pas un homme modeste. Mais, en l’occurrence, il ne présumait pas de lui-même. Contre l’avis de beaucoup de ses collaborateurs, à contre-courant de tous les autres dirigeants du nationalisme maghrébin, le jour même où Nasser, Tito, Chou En-laï, Soekarno défiaient l’Occident depuis Bandoeng, le 24 avril 1955, Bourguiba acceptait de signer avec la France des conventions qui donnaient à la Tunisie, au terme d’interminables et fort pénibles négociations, une autonomie interne... incomplète.


À Edgar Faure, qui avait succédé à Mendès et lui refusait une dernière et minuscule concession, Bourguiba, en grande colère, dira, devant moi : “ Vos conventions (d’autonomie interne), c’est de la foutaise : elles ne tiennent que par moi, et vous le savez bien. Vous voulez faire en sorte qu’elles ligotent la Tunisie pendant vingt ans, alors qu’à mes yeux, elles ne sont qu’une étape v! ers l’Indépendance, qui est bel et bien au bout de la rue. Nous verrons bien qui a raison… ”


Moins d’un an après, c’est à Bourguiba que l’Histoire donnait raison : le 20 mars 1956, l’Indépendance de la Tunisie était proclamée.


N’ayant servi que de marchepied à l’Indépendance, l’autonomie interne sombrait, et disparaissaient avec elle, sans avoir été appliquées, les conventions censées la régir pendant vingt ans et que nous avions mis neuf mois à négocier...


P.-S. : Le censeur tunisien dont nous vous avons parlé ici la semaine dernière a dû recevoir pour instruction de “ faire plus vite ” : démentant mon pronostic, il n’a mis qu’un jour et demi à lire le n° 2060 de Jeune Afrique/ L’intelligent, avant d’en autoriser la diffusion sur le territoire de la République.

Rappel:

Tunisian president advised Arafat to go to Camp David

Monday, 10 July 2000 18:15 (ET) 

Tunisian president advised Arafat to go to Camp David
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE

 HAMMAMET, Tunisia, July 10 (UPI) -- PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's presence
at Camp David may be due to some timely advice from Tunisian President Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali, the North African head of state revealed Sunday. He said
Arafat had called him to say he would never go to Middle East peace talks at
Camp David until Israel first lived up to the accords already reached. "I
said to Arafat, 'never say never,' the president recalled. "If something
breaks down it must not be perceived as Arafat's fault."

 Ironically, the talks displaced President Ben Ali's own American trip --
at least temporarily. He had himself been preparing for a state visit to
Washington, beginning July 13, when he received a last-minute call from
President Clinton asking him to postpone his trip so that Clinton could give
what he referred to as "my undivided attention" to the Arafat-Ehud Barak
summit.

 Instead, Ben Ali talked with this reporter in French for 90 minutes in an
exclusive interview with United Press International at the presidential
retreat near Tunis.

 The Tunisian president said any Palestinian-Israeli talks were conditioned
by an overwhelming reality. "The two sides are destined to live together,"
he said. "Israel will have to accept a Palestinian administrative capital in
east Jerusalem. As for the return of Palestinian refugees, clearly the
principle has to be accepted of open borders and freedom of movement. The
two sides must raise their sights and look at their futures in the context
of the ever-faster pace of technological change. And here Israel's
tremendous advances can play the role of locomotive for the region."

 As for the belief of some Israelis that they might be better off waiting
for Arafat's political demise, "that would be playing with fire. The new
Palestinian leader could well be a less moderate figure."

 On what was perhaps the other major problem facing the community of Arab
nations, Ben Ali said all Arab nations, except one, were now in favor of
lifting economic sanctions against Iraq. The exception is Kuwait, the
country President Saddam Hussein invaded in 1990 and from which his army was
driven out by a U.S.-led, 29-nation coalition in 1991.

 "Embargoes do not work," said Ben Ali. "They are counter-productive and
simply perpetuate dictators in power...You are hurting the people, not the
regime, and Saddam Hussein can keep blaming their inhuman plight on the U.S.
"

 Every Iraqi family "has lost someone to war or deprivation as a result of
the embargo," he went on. "Iraq used to be the most advanced country in the
Arab world. Now the country is finished in its present state. And Saddam
continues to dream of revenge. This has been going on for ten years. So
prudence and foresight would seem to dictate an end to sanctions that the
regime circumvents anyway."

 On another topic, President Ben Ali advised powers that are trying to find
counterweights to American power not to waste their resources as "that kind
of balance is dead. There is no way Russia can replace the USSR as a global
power. India and China...are a long way from being part of any global
balance of power. The EU is probably the closest but it remains to be seen
whether the Europeans are prepared to spend what it takes to be a global
power capable of assuming the role of an emergency response number for the
whole world."

 In Ben Ali's view, people should not worry whether globalization and
Americanization are one and the same. "We cannot escape it," he said. "Don't
fight it, but use it to leverage yourself into the global economy.
Globalization is more than McDonald's, baseball caps and Hollywood movies.
It is a constant spur to do more - and better. We have to prepare for the
New World Order. Our Tunisian primary schools are on the Internet...I myself
spend three hours a night on the Internet. I download documents from
universities, major libraries in Europe and America and send them to my
ministers asking whether they're on to this or that. When I am looking for
someone worthy for a high-ranking government job, I check my own database
for the best qualified."

 Ben Ali believes that the widening gap between rich and poor and between
computer literate and computer illiterate is "the overarching problems that
dominates all others - from ethnic conflict to fundamentalist extremism."
America's impressive technological lead makes it "the locomotive for the
rest of the world," he said. But he warned "it cannot be a winner-take-all
kind of world" because "this would be a recipe for the resurrection of
recently buried totalitarian dogma."

 He reiterated his call for a World Solidarity Fund aimed at bridging the
still widening gap "that has become a universal phenomenon that affects
primarily developing nations. The kind of solidarity, both between nations
and peoples, is a humanitarian duty and obligation. Failure to tackle global
poverty with a universal plan of action can only lead to more wars."

 Ben Ali returned several times to the menace of Islamic extremists that he
said can only be circumscribed with social and economic reforms, "which is
what we have done with our totally open society. Youth everywhere is
demanding transparency. The Internet is eroding all taboos. The only one we
insist on retaining is the sanctity of one's private life. Who does what to
whom and sexual preferences in peoples' private lives are none of anyone's
business except for the individuals involved."

 Tunisia recently released some 600 extremists who had served their
sentences and whose crimes ranged from murder to throwing acid in the faces
of women who refused to wear the chador and the veil. "We did not execute a
single one," said Ben Ali. "They have now been absorbed in a transformed
modern society where the veil is not allowed in government offices, where
20% of the municipal posts in the country and two cabinet positions are held
by women, where 70% of the country is now part of the middle class, 80% own
their own homes, and where all religions are treated with equal respect by a
population that is 90% Muslim."

 In a recent crossborder attack against Tunisia, Islamic terrorists left
three bodies and equipment behind as they fled back to Algeria. Ben Ali told
UPI, "They were Arab Afghans. They even wore the distinctive wide-brimmed
Afghan beret. These people are veterans of the war against the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. There are thousands of such veterans from every
Arab country. They returned from that war as fanatical fundamentalists who
identify with Jihad, or holy war against bathe infidels. We have worked
closely with Algerian security on this problem." About 100,000 Algerians
have been killed during an eight-year civil war between Islamic terrorists
and government forces.

U.S. Department of State

Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: Tunisia
Released by the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Washington, DC, September 9, 1999


TUNISIA

Section I. Freedom of Religion

Islam is the state religion. The Constitution provides for the free exercise of other religions that do not disturb the public order, and the Government generally observes and enforces this right; however, it does not permit proselytizing and partially limits the religious freedom of Baha'is.

The Government controls and subsidizes mosques and pays the salaries of prayer leaders. The President appoints the Grand Mufti of the Republic. The 1988 Law on Mosques provides that only personnel appointed by the Government may lead activities in mosques, and stipulates that mosques must remain closed except during prayer times and other authorized religious ceremonies, such as marria! ges or funerals. New mosques may be built in accordance with national urban planning regulations but become the property of the State. The Constitution stipulates that the President of the Republic must be a Muslim. The Government also partially subsidizes the Jewish community.

The Government recognizes all Christian and Jewish religious organizations that were established before independence in 1956, but does not permit Christian groups to establish new churches.

The vast majority of the population of 9.2 million is nominally Muslim. There is no reliable data on the number of practicing Muslims. The nominal Christian community--composed of foreign temporary and permanent residents and a small group of native-born citizens of both European and Arab origin--numbers approximately 20,000 and is dispersed throughout the country. According to church leaders, the practicing Christian population numbers approximately 2,000 and includes an estimated 200 native-born eth! nic Arab citizens who have converted to Christianity. The Catholic Church operates 5 churches, 14 private schools, and 7 cultural centers throughout the country, as well as 1 hospital in Tunis, the capital. It has approximately 1,400 practicing members, composed of temporary and permanent foreign residents and a small number of native-born citizens of European and Arab origin. In addition to holding religious services, the Catholic Church also freely organizes cultural activities and performs charitable work throughout the country. The Russian Orthodox Church has 340 practicing members and operates two churches--one in Tunis and one in Bizerte. The French Reform Church operates one church in Tunis, with a congregation of 140 primarily foreign members. The Anglican Church has approximately 50 foreign members who worship in a church in Tunis. The 30-member Greek Orthodox Church maintains 1 church each in Tunis, Sousse, and Jerba. A community of 43 Jehovah's Witnesses, of which a! bout half are foreign residents and half are native-born citizens, also exists. Although the Government permits these Christian churches to operate freely, only the Catholic Church has formal recognition from the post-independence Government. The other churches operate under land grants signed by the Bey of Tunis in the 18th and 19th centuries, which are respected by the post- independence Government.

With 1,800 adherents split nearly equally between the capital and the island of Jerba, the Jewish community is the country's largest indigenous religious minority. The Government allows the Jewish community freedom of worship and pays the salary of the Grand Rabbi. It also partially subsidizes restoration and maintenance costs for some synagogues. Since independence in 1956, the Jewish community has operated freely under a provisional status agreement with the Government, which is to be converted to a permanent status agreement after the community chooses to hold its inte! rnal elections. The Government permits the Jewish community to operate private religious schools and allows Jewish children on the island of Jerba to split their academic day between secular public schools and private religious schools. The Government also encourages Jewish emigres to return for the annual Jewish pilgrimage to the historic El-Ghriba Synagogue on the island of Jerba.

The Government regards the Baha'i Faith as a heretical sect of Islam and permits its 150 adherents to practice their faith only in private. Although the Government permits Baha'is to hold meetings of their National Council in private homes, it reportedly has prohibited them from organizing local councils. The Government reportedly pressures Baha'is to eschew organized religious activities.

In general the Government does not permit Christian groups to establish new churches, and proselytizing is viewed as an act against the public order. Foreign missionary organizations and groups do! not operate in the country. Authorities ask foreigners suspected of proselytizing to depart the country and do not permit them to return. There were no reported cases of official action against persons suspected of proselytizing during the period covered by this report.

Islamic religious education is mandatory in public schools, but the religious curriculum for secondary school students also includes the history of Judaism and Christianity. The Zeitouna Koranic School is part of the Government's national university system.

Both religious and secular nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) are governed by the same law and administrative regulations on association that impose some restrictions on freedom of assembly. For example, all NGO's are required to notify the Government of meetings to be held in public spaces at least 3 days in advance and to submit lists of all meeting participants to the Ministry of Interior. There were credible reports that two Christian! religious organizations did not attempt to register because they believed that their applications would be rejected, although they were able to function freely under the auspices of their respective churches. Neither group believed that it was a victim of religious discrimination. A third group, composed of foreign Christians mostly from Sweden and the United Kingdom, is active in providing medical and social services in the city of Kasserine in the west. Despite its ambiguous legal status, this group (with 15 to 20 members) reports that it has been free to pursue its social and medical work without interference and states that it does not believe that it has been subject to religious discrimination.

Religious groups are subjected to the same restrictions on freedom of speech and the press as secular groups. Primary among these restrictions is "depot legal," the requirement that printers and publishers provide copies of all publications to the Chief Prosecutor, the Mi! nistry of Interior, and the Ministry of Culture prior to publication. Similarly, distributors must deposit copies of publications printed abroad with the Chief Prosecutor and various ministries prior to their public release. Although Christian groups reported that they were able to distribute previously-approved religious publications in European languages without difficulty, they claimed that the Government generally did not approve either publication or distribution of Arabic-language Christian material. Moreover, authorized distribution of religious publications was limited to existing religious communities, because the Government views public distribution of both religious and secular documents as a threat to the public order and hence an illegal act.

The Government promotes interfaith understanding by sponsoring regular conferences and seminars on religious tolerance and by facilitating and promoting the annual Jewish pilgrimage to the El-Ghriba Synagogue.
There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report.

There were credible reports that one Arab Christian citizen was beaten, held in police custody for 5 days, and subjected to periodic harassment by police officials throughout 1998 because of his religious beliefs and practices. Other credible sources reported that police officials questioned and searched the home of another recent Arab convert to Christianity in December 1998. According to human rights lawyers, the Government regularly questioned Muslims who were observed praying frequently in mosques. There were no reports of the forced religious conversion of minor U.S. citizens who have been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the Government's refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.

Section II. Societal Attitudes

Amicable relations exist among all religious communities.

Section III. ! U.S. Government Policy

The U.S. Embassy maintains good relations with leaders of majority and minority religious groups throughout the country, and the Ambassador and other embassy officials met regularly with Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Baha'i religious leaders throughout the period covered by this report. In May 1998, the Ambassador traveled outside Tunis to meet with minority religious groups, and one embassy officer attended the 1998 Jewish pilgrimage to the El-Ghriba synagogue. Embassy representatives privately discussed religious freedom issues with government officials in June and September 1998 and again in April 1999. The Department of State delivered a private demarche on alleged harassment of the Baha'i community in June 1998, which appears to have resulted in greater government tolerance of Baha'i activities. Embassy officers have participated in government-sponsored conferences on religious tolerance.

Since 1997 the United States Information Ser! vice (USIS) has sent Tunisian professors to American universities to attend United States Information Agency-sponsored seminars on the topic of religion in America. The program includes sessions on the separation of church and state, religious pluralism, women and religion, religion and ethnicity (including Islam in America), religious dissent, religious tolerance, secular education, and religious considerations in American foreign policy. In addition, the 1998 participant in the program led a roundtable discussion on religion in America in October at USIS to share what he had learned during the program. The audience for this roundtable was drawn from various campuses in the United States.

[End of Document]

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