"Tunisians Want Reconciliation"

How did you receive the pardon of the Tunisian President and your release from prison?

Muhammad Abbou: It was not a presidential pardon like some have described it; it was a conditional release; moreover, it has come after I have completed more than two thirds of my term in prison. The credit does not go back to the authorities who appear to have had the intention of seeing to the fact that I were to complete my full term in prison and to all the free voices that were raised calling for my release.

Credit goes to my colleagues, the lawyers, who began from the moment of my imprisonment on March 1st 2005 an enormous campaign for my release and went to include many individuals in Tunisian civil society as well as the International community. It was a ceaseless campaign on the part of International and Tunisian organizations for more than two years in order to effect my release and freedom.

The French President interfered for your release.

Abbou: Yes, and here I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to him and to all the Legal French Organizations and to the entire French nation. I would also like to thank the American State Department that demanded my release in an official statement and the US embassy in Tunis has done a lot in this regard.

I would also like to thank other International human rights organizations that have taken up my case as well as all the other individuals who have expressed their objections in letters to the media contributing to revealing the falsehood in the discourse of the Tunisian government.

Do you fear the fact that the United States as well as France have taken an interest in your release that the Tunisian government would accuse you of taking refuge with a foreign power as several of your opponents have commented?

Abbou: I would like to make it clear that Tunisians have been deprived of seeking the aid of institutions that are set up to safeguard their rights as well as demanding justice.

If these organizations have become a weapon with which to attack political opposition depriving citizens from demanding their rights, one must find a way of seeking a solution to a problematic situation like that.

Philosophers have written that nations under such conditions have the right to exercise resistance to oppression; we feared that our beloved nation Tunisia would disintegrate into chaos and violence even though our people are famous for their tolerance and they want reconciliation despite the lack of democracy.

Our nation has all the components that would qualify it to experience democracy and we see at the moment that our only struggle to that end is through peaceful resistance. Except that the Tunisian government does not allow any form of resistance whatsoever even if it were peaceful.

That is why it does not embarrass me that international pressures is exerted on the part of Tunis' partners whose aim is to achieve a resolution which is to force the regime to return the rights of its citizens, to respect the constitution and International decrees that it was a signatory to and all other laws that would give its citizens their freedoms.

It is also important to make clear that these pressures on the part of Tunis' partners should be limited to putting an end to all cases where the Constitution and laws are being violated in addition to the dignity of its citizens. We will not support a foreign intervention that seeks to impose on the government conditions that would contradict any mandates taken in the interest of the Tunisian people.

What were your prison conditions like?

Abbou: I underwent very difficult conditions and on the 19th of March 2006 I started a hunger strike; I also demanded that I be moved to a regular cell after I had heard some declarations on the part of the government that there are no political prisoners in Tunis and that is why my treatment had to be the same as that of the other ordinary prisoners.

My request was denied and they punished me by forcing me into the cell and on the 9th day of my hunger strike that lasted a total of 25 days, they forced me despite a very weak medical condition to leave the cell and stand a daily count with the other prisoners. My case was brought up with the medical doctor in the prison who claimed to me and all those present that my medical condition posed no danger to my life which was a pervert assessment and totally inhuman.

On the other hand, in the context of my solidarity with the other prisoners in the other cells who had no beds, I chose to sleep on a bed with no mattress, a situation that caused a lot of aggravation to my kidneys.

Of course, it was easy to solve the situation if they had responded to my legitimate request but they refused which meant that I continued to sleep in painful and unhealthy conditions for an entire year and four months. I really hope that these humiliating experiences will not continue in a nation that deserves respect and dignity.

Were you exposed during your imprisonment to attempts by the authorities to ask for pardon on the article that placed you behind the docks?

Abbou: These attempts were made on the part of individuals who were close to the authorities and by a prisoner who was sent especially with that mission; these and other cheap methods did not cease until I was released from prison. I refused all of them not only in order to defend my own dignity and my right of free expression but also in defense of all my fellow countrymen so they would not be humiliated because of me.

How do you see the call of President Ben Ali on the nation to extend his term in office another five years starting in 2009?

Abbou: I believe that one of the main cornerstones in the Republican system is the circulation of power the same way the President Ben Ali arrived in power in 1987 and received a welcome from those who have suffered under the tyranny of Habib Bourguiba (Tunisia's president from 1957 – 1987, the ed.) and from the whole idea of president for life – the welcome was based on the fact that his presidency was regarded as a break from the oppressive past according to a declaration made on November 7th, 1987.

That promise was never implemented despite a Tunisian constitutional amendment in 1988 that did not permit the president to renew his nomination more than two times. Another constitutional amendment was made after a referendum in 2002 that allowed Ben Ali to remain in power until 2009 after his nomination in the elections in 2004 and granted him another nomination in 2009 after 22 years in power and he would be seventy-three years old.

This would take us back to the Bourguiba era and everyone knows the dangers that the country was exposed to in the eighties as a result of such a situation. I believe that it is impossible to build a democracy in Tunisia or in any other country in the world with a president for life mandate.

Interview conducted by Selim Boukhidr

© Qantara.de 2007

Selim Boukhidr is Tunisian writer and journalist.

Translated from the Arabic by Mona Zaki

Qantara.de

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