OWN CORRESPONDENT, Paris | Saturday
FOUR Tunisian students have given a graphic account of the beatings, rape and torture they say they endured at the hands of Tunisian security police after being arrested for taking part in protests.
“The torture is systematic and institutionalised. It is carried out round-the-clock on men and women,” said Imen Derouiche, a student in economics who described her ordeal at a press conference in Paris organized by rights groups.
“The women are sometimes beaten in front of their children,” said Derouiche, who was arrested in 1998 after taking part in a student demonstration. “Some who are pregnant are beaten until they lose the baby.”
She said she was beaten, spit on, kicked, insulted and then raped. A doctor stood by but did not intervene, she said.
Derouiche said each floor at the police headquarters in Tunis, where she was detained, specialized in a different form of torture.
“And we all knew the names of our torturers,” she said. “There was ‘Ali Mansour’, ‘Bokassa’, ‘Hlass'”.
Zouhaier Issaoui, detained four times since 1981, said he was given electric shock treatment and had his finger nails pulled out. He also described what he called the “roast chicken” procedure, in which a victim is tied up and guards burn off his body hair.
He said police in some cases also let off gas into prison cells to asphyxiate inmates.
A 200-page report entitled “Torture in Tunisia” was released at the news conference by the Committee for the Respect of Freedom and Human Rights in Tunisia (CRLDHT).
The president of the group, Kamel Jendoubi, recalled that Tunisia had ratified the international convention against torture and urged Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to allow a commission of enquiry into the country.
Tunisia has come under mounting scrutiny in recent months for its record on human rights, and various groups have sought to publicise abuses which they say are prevalent under Ben Ali’s government.
Last July, three human rights activists from the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and Amnesty International were barred from entering the country. – AFP