WRITTEN QUESTION E-3031/02

by Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission

(23 October 2002)

Subject: Very worrying plight of Mr Mohamed Kamel Hamzaoui

According to reliable sources, including the World Organisation Against Torture, Mr Hamzaoui, who is a former member of the RCD Central Committee and a former mayor of Kasserine, has been sentenced to several terms of imprisonment by the Tunisian courts. After spending more than 10 months at the Charles Nicole Hospital in Tunis for health reasons, he was transferred by the police to the Tunis civil prison on 17 August 2002. Following a stroke Mr Hamzaoui has serious mobility problems, very poor eyesight and an oedema in one arm. His very high blood pressure also shows that he urgently needs proper treatment. On 28 September 2002 the Tunis civil prison staff informed Mr Hamzaoui's family, who had come to visit him, that he had been transferred to the police hospital at Marsa. Since that date the family has not been able to see him or even send him a blanket and food. According to a reliable source the doctors who reputedly examined him at the police hospital apparently told him that the Charles Nicole Hospital would be more suitable to provide the care that he needs.

Is the Commission aware of the very worrying plight of Mr Hamzaoui? Has the Commission made representations to the Tunisian authorities for Mr Hamzaoui to be released on humanitarian grounds and, pending his release, to receive without hindrance the medical treatment he needs and visits from his family? More generally, does the Commission not feel that the persecution affecting Mr Hamzaoui, as a member of the RCD, the party of the President-dictator Ben Ali, is evidence of a disturbing increase in the Tunisian regime's desperate efforts to stay in power?

Answer from Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(18 November 2002)

The Commission would like to thank the honourable Member of Parliament for drawing its attention to the plight of Mr Mohamed Kamel Hamzaoui, about whom it has received information.

In the case of Mr Hamzaoui and other detainees, the matter at issue is prison conditions in Tunisia. A number of testimonies collected during recent months paint an extremely negative picture. Moreover, at a recent meeting of the EU-Tunisia Association Committee, the European Union called upon the authorities to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), whose intervention concerning prison conditions in Tunisia would be particularly welcomed.

On a different level, the Commission is working towards the modernisation of the Tunisian justice system, by means of a programme in preparation in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements (MEDA).

The European Union, with the help of its heads of mission in Tunis, will continue to take the necessary steps in order to improve the human rights situation in Tunisia.