The man appointed to organize the World Summit on the Information Society that Tunisia will host in November 2005 is a Tunisian former secret policeman named Habib Ammar. He is well known by national and international human rights organizations for his use of torture. Tunisia's choice of organizer clearly reflects the manner in which the Internet is managed in Tunisia as well as the Tunisian authorities' vision of the Internet.

      Ammar was the chief of the National Guard between 1984 and 1987, then the Minister of Interior in 1988. Despite then notoriety he gained for his use of torture against Tunisian detainees, he was appointed as chairman of the preparatory committee of the aforementioned Summit. During his visit to Switzerland in September 2003, two human rights organizations filed a complaint against him based on the UN International Convention against Torture which obligates Switzerland, as a state party, to apprehend perpetrators of torture in the case that they be within Switzerland's jurisprudence.

      Ammar was not arrested in Switzerland. Not because he was innocent or because the charges brought against him were not serious but because he, as a representative of a state member in the meetings of the World Summit, enjoys immunity according to the agreement made between the Switzerland government and the International Union of Technology (UIT).1

      The Internet in Tunis dates back to 1991. However, while Tunis was the first Arab state with exposure to the Internet, the majority Tunisians would gain access to the Internet long after that date.

      A Tunisian statistical report, published on Middle East Online in November 2003, shows the number of Internet users in Tunis to be 550,000 people. The report states, "The number of the 'publinet' net cafes has reached 300, located all over Tunisia. There are now 12 ISPs from public and private sectors."2

      Till 1997-when there were an estimated 1200 subscribers-the number of Internet subscribers in Tunis was growing unhurriedly. In October 1997 the number of subscribers reached 4000; in November 1997, 11,000. One can estimate from these numbers that the monthly growth rate of the Internet subscribers in Tunis to be 8.40%3.

      In a promising statement that opened the Geneva Information Summit held in December 2003, the Tunisian president Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali affirmed the significance of technological transformations in developing the information society. He went on to state that amongst the myriad ramifications of such technological transformation would be the establishment of a comprehensive and integrated concept of human rights which, in turn, would help establish freedom of expression, states' autonomy, and people's right to self-determination.4

      The practical reality in Tunis is completely different from these statements. Tunisian Internet users do not have a variety of choices in the web sites they visit. As Human Rights Watch reports, "Tunis has a group of Internet legislations which are considered to be the region's most detailed ones. Many of them were designed to insure that no criticism or free opinion could pass from the same oppressive laws imposed on the other mediums. The Internet Decree, issued in 1997, stipulates that 'Each ISP must submit, on a monthly basis, a list of its Internet subscribers to the "public operator" (the state-run ATI) (article 8, paragraph 5); if the ISP closes down or stops providing services, it must "without delay" turn over to the "public operator" a complete set of its archives ("l'ensemble des supports d'archivage") as well as the means to read it (article 9, paragraph 7).' It also imposes a legal responsibility on the ISPs for the content of the web sites they host. The internet decree also bars encryption without prior approval from the authorities."5

      When Zine Al-Abidine's government, already known for its acute restriction of freedom of expression, appoints a former policeman as chief of the preparatory committee of the second phase of the Information Society Summit, and when the two largest ISPs in Tunisia are controlled by persons close to the Tunisian president, it is no surprise that the "publinet" net cafes common in many Tunisian cities are not permitted to allow their customers to log on websites considered offensive to the government. These websites were described by Al Hayat as rebel websites because they are intensively monitored by security forces.7

Tunisian censorship is not limited to rebel websites such as "Qos Al Karama," a website created by the Tunisian activist Galal Al Zoghlamy. The government goes even further, banning several international web sites such as the well known "Hotmail" website, many Palestinian websites, Egyptian websites (like Masrawy.com), human rights websites, and the Donia Al-Watan newspaper's website. These websites are not interested specifically in the Tunisian situation; the banning of these websites demonstrates the intensity of censorship in Tunisia.

      When discussing the violations committed by the authorities against Tunisian lawyers, Mohammad Gabbor, the secretary-general of the Tunisian lawyers union, stated, "Lawyers have been exposed to many violations including sexual violations. The lawyers are frequently wiretapped and sometimes their lines are disconnected completely. The Ministry if Interior may change the direction of some fax lines to prevent transmission. Many web sites are blocked as well." (8) Zohair al Yehiawy: The first (but not last) prisoner of the Internet

      On the 20th of June 2002, a Tunisian court sentenced the journalist Zohair Ben Said al Yehiawy, founder and editor-in-chief of the news website TUNeZINE, to two years and four months in prison. He had been charged of "disseminating false news" and "fraudulent use of a means of communication." He was even charged of theft.


      Yehiawy was the first to distribute an open letter to the Tunisian president, written by Mokhtar Al Yehiawy, Zohair's uncle and a judge, criticizing the independence of the Tunisian judicial system. This letter was the main reason behind the expulsion of Judge Yehiawy from his position in 2001.


     Tunisian authorities have been using numerous illegal tools to monitor and harass political dissidents and human rights activists. Yet Yehiawy's trial was the first of its kind, as it was the first time that the Tunisian judiciary was faced with a Tunisian cyber-dissident whose crime was to criticize the regime on the Internet.

      The TUNeZINE website was known for its rigorous criticism of the police practices in Tunis. It contained articles censuring the state's political situations written by authors who employed pseudonyms. Once Yehiawy posted a poll on the website asking readers, "Do you consider Tunisia to be a republic, a kingdom, a zoo, or a prison?" 9


     In its press release issued on July 16th 2003, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Menrad said, "we condemn the hard line taken by the Tunisian judiciary with this cyber dissident, whose only crime is to have dared to denounce President Ben Ali's totalitarian regime."10 The release of Yehiawy in November 2003 was an attempt on the part of the Tunisian government to improve the state's image a month before 5+5 Summit was held in December 2003. Yehiawy was released on the condition that he not repeat the same actions that led him to jail, a condition that amounts to political censorship.

Visit a web site. Get behind bars

      Banning websites offensive to authorities and detaining those who create these sites are normal strategies used in the Arab region and China. But to detain Internet users for merely visiting a website is a strategy unique to Tunisia.

      On May 14th 2003, about 200 pioneering Tunisian political and human rights activists signed a petition calling on Tunisian authorities, including President Ben Ali, "to stop violating the individual and collective rights of expression.
" The petition mentioned Maher Al Asmany, a 23 year old who had been tortured to death on the 27th of April 2003 inside the police center.11 The petition read, "During the last months, 40 young Tunisian men have been jailed, sentenced to long terms and tortured, just for logging on to some websites claimed by authorities to be terrorist web sites." The petition encouraged human rights activists and all civil society organizations to make the year 2003 a year for imposing freedom of expression in Tunisia.

      The suffering of Tunisian net users led Reporters without Borders to issue a press release on 03/07/2003 describing the UN decision to hold the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis as a joke, stating that "anyone knowing a little about the situation in Tunisia with the Internet and press freedom generally might be able to laugh about it"12.

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Footnotes
1. Swiss Info web site. 14/09/2003. Accessed on 02/02/2004.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sar/swissinfo.html?siteSect=2105&sid=4270955
2. Middle East Online web site. 05/11/2003. Accessed on 04/01/2004
http://www.middle-east- online.com/technology/?id=19142
3. "Human Capital in the Information Society in Arab States," Arab Magazine for Sciences and Information, 24.
4. Middle East Online web site. 10/12/2003. Visited on 02/05/2004
http://www.middle-east- online.com/technology/?id=20000
5. "The Internet in Middle East and North Africa, Free Expression and Censorship. A report by Human Rights Watch," 1999
http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/internet/mena/index.htm
6. BBC on Friday. 06/092002. Accessed on 04/01/04
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/middle_east_news/newsid_2240000/2240523.stm
7. Al Hayat. 9 September 2002
8. Swiss Info website. 10 December 2003. Visited on 12 February 2004.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sar/swissinfo.html?siteSect=2105&sid=4531154
9. Elaph electronic newspaper. 10 June 2003.
10. Press Release, Reporters Without Borders. 16 July 2003. Accessed on 17 January 2004.
11. Islam-Online.net. 14 May 2003. Accessed on 9 August 2003.
http://www.islam-online.net/Arabic/news/2003- 05/14/article10.shtml
12. BBC on Friday. 6 September 2003. Visited on 4 January 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/middle_east_news/newsid_2240000/2240523.stm