Dr. Sadok Shourou ... Mandela of Tunisia

الحملة الدولية لحقوق الإنسان بتونس
International Campaign for Human Rights in Tunisia
icfhrt@yahoo.com

Tel: (0044) 2084233070- 7903274826 

Dr. Sadok Shourou
"Mandela of Tunisia" 

A Profile

1 - Dr. Sadok Shourou: A Biography
2 - The plight of  "Mandela of Tunisia," Dr. Sadok Shourou
3 - Positions of national and international organizations
4 - Attitudes and views of Dr. Sadok Shourou
5 - Appeals to supporters of freedom in the world

 

Dr. Sadok Shorou: A Biography

·        Dr. Sadok Shourou was born in 1952 and received his doctorate in chemistry from the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis.

·        Lectured in  Chemistry at the Faculty of Medicine until his arrest in 1991.

·        Was  member of the Committee of Scientific Research at the University Centre for Scientific Research in Bordj El Sedria in Tunis until his arrest.

·        Was member of the Association of Higher Education of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT).

·        Known for his  support to  student causes and welfare in addition to his support to public liberties and freedoms.

·        Joined  the consultative  Council of the Renaissance Movement since the early eighties.

·        Elected in 1988 as President of the Renaissance Movement and continued to carry on his duties until arrested on 17 February 1991.

The plight of Dr. Sadok Shourou

·        Dr. Sadok Shourou deserved the title of "Tunisian Mandela" given his ordeal which  still continues since 1991 in defence of freedoms in Tunisia, and this is the longest period spent in prison by a Tunisian militant  since the French colonisation without compromising on the basic demands of the Tunisian civil society on freedom of expression and association and the right to a good governance.

·        Dr. Shourou’s arrest on 17 February 1991 has been part of a campaign launched by the Tunisian regime  against the popular resistance to the bloody dictatorship and assassination of militants.  

·        It was a  movement led by human rights organisations and political parties and essentially the Renaissance Movement presided  by Dr Shourou.

·        Dr. Shorou’ place of detention  was kept secret for a long time without anyone knowing where he was, including his family. He was also  subjected to severe torture to confess to scenarios of security aimed at implicating him and his political party in the use of violence to gain power.

·        On 28 August 1992, 265 leading figures of the Renaissance Movement including Dr Shourou were tried by an exceptional military court which sentenced him to life imprisonment.

·        It was the unanimous view of national and international human rights organisations that the trial was unfair  for lack of minimum conditions of justice, the non constitutionality of the military court, the breach of rights to access to legal advice and representation and where confessions were extracted under torture among many other misdemeanours of the authorities .  

·         In a TV show known as “without a visa” on the London based  Arab channel “Dialogue”,  Dr. Sadok Shourou confirmed, and that was during the short period of his release (27 days only),  when speaking about the circumstances of his arrest that: "...many torture teams took turns to inflict all  types of torture on me  in three consecutive periods in order to coerce me to confess to charges that would lead to my conviction in court . In the military court I was sentenced on charges of attempting to overthrow the government by force, the prosecution failed to advance any evidence to prove the aforementioned charges...”.

·        After the trial and unjust and unfounded conviction, I was sent to serve my sentence in different prisons up and down the country but always far away from where my family and I was in confinement and isolation in all of these prisons for 13 years. As a political prisoner, I have  been treated like a second class prisoner deprived of the rights enjoyed by normal prisoners (from the intervention of Dr. Shourou on December 1, 2008).

·       In a letter to Al-Wasat, an online newspaper, a former political prisoner, speaking of Dr. Sadik Chorou in Alnadhour  prison in Tunis said: "Imagine a man serving 23 and a half hours in a cell of no more than 6 square meters is as his bedroom, his toilet and his mosque,  (the remaining half an hour is for the morning and evening breaks ). The food they present to him even dogs will not take it. Of course, they  push him to the madness "(Alwasat, June 6, 2007).

·        Dr. Shourou was released  on November 5, 2008 following a  presidential amnesty  and three weeks later, he was detained again after  a press briefing in which he talked about the types of torture he suffered together with other members of  the Renaissance Movement in prison and in the Ministry of Interior. He has also announced his determination to uphold his right to association and of expression.

·        As to the suffering, of Dr. Sadok Shorou since the date of his arrest on the 3 December 2009, the Switzerland based organisation Al Karama (Dignity)  stated that "The conditions of detention of Dr. Sadok Shourou tantamount to inhuman torture. It resulted in serious consequences to his present condition, especially as he  is today 62 years old and suffered from various chronic diseases as a result to his continued incarceration for two decades "(dignity November 7, 2009)

The position of national international human rights organisations

·        There is agreement among local and international human rights organizations that Dr. Shourou has been and is being persecuted and prosecuted for political reasons and reasons that are concurrent to his human rights and not anything else as is alleged by the Tunisian authorities.

·        Amnesty International expressed its deep concern regarding the detention of Sadok Shourou ... and feared that he was  detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression following his release in November 2008 after 18 years in prison. [his second arrest happened after] ...he  had conducted interviews with Arab media in which he talked about his experiences in prison and his views on the political situation in Tunisia He also expressed his desire that  the Movement of Renaissance gets authorization to resume its  political activities "

·        Human Rights Watch has Also criticized the Government of Tunisia for having re-arrested Dr. Shouru a few weeks after his release solely for expressing his political opinions in the media and invited the  authorities to drop the charges against Dr. Chorou. CNN, reported  Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa  as saying that Shourou "finds himself back in prison after spending nearly two decades there on dubious charges for expressing his views to the media ... and Sadok Chorou finds himself behind bars because of an unjust law criminalizing belonging to associations......and that the Tunisian  government has applied unfairly to crush the opposition ... Prosecutors should drop the case and allow Chorou freedom "(The Human Rights Watch on March 12, 2009)

·       In a joint statement of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the National Council for Freedoms, the International Association  for the Support of Political Prisoners, the Organization of Freedom and Equity, the Association Against Torture, the National Association of  Old Combatants and the National Observatory for Freedom of the Press, theses organisations  expressed  their "...rejection of political trials in general and the trial of Dr. Shourou former President of the Renaissance Movement for his opinions and political positions in particular, and strongly support his right to freedom of expression and association, his recovery of his civil and political rights and call for his immediate release and to stop the harassment of his family. "(a statement dated March 13, 2009

·         Previously, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Tunisia and a number of local and international human rights organisations issued a petition demanding the release of political prisoners n Tunisia and especially Dr. Sadok  Shourou.  Among these organisations the Arab Commission for Human Rights, the Syrian Association for Human Rights, the Bahraini Association for Human Rights, the National Council for Liberties, the organisation of Freedom and Equity and the Association Verite Action. The petition was also signed by Human rights activists.

Positions and views of Dr. Sadok Shourou

·        In his address to the court on March 2009, Dr. Sadok Shourou "the government has only to open the door for a national dialogue that does not exclude anyone and to know that there is no alternative to actual and real civil political liberties and social justice that does not discriminate between groups or among the parties, the inevitable return of rights to their owners, to facilitate the return of all displaced people and compensate the affected ones

·        .... Our dispute with the political regime in Tunisia has a political nature but the regime has rejected any political solution and opted for a  security approach.

Appeals to supporters of freedom in the world

·        The campaign calls on supporters of freedom and human rights in the world to intervene to put an end to the injustice committed on  Dr. Sadok Shourou and made him the longest serving political prisoner in Tunisia.

·         Dr. Sadok  Shorou has previously  appealed to the scientists and scholars to bear witness on his suffering and on the repression he finds in Tunisian prisons above the  denial of basic rights" (Islam Online on September 15, 2009)

·          It is time we put our hands together and put pressure to get Dr Shourou as well as all other prisoners out and give them the opportunity to live their life normally with their families and children. It is also time we support them so that their regain their rights and  the opportunity to contribute towards a better future of a TUNISIA FOR ALL

·         PLEASE  MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD, WRITE TO THE GOVERMENT OF TUNISIA AND ITS PRESIDENT

·         IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN COOPERATING WITH US, PLEASE CONTACT THE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN TUNISIA FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION

·         IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SUGGEST TO US, INCLUDING ALL FORM OF SUPPORT,  WE WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO HEAR FROM YOU.

 

International Campaign for Human Rights in Tunisia

 

Ali Ben Arfa

 

London 15 December 2009