CAT/C/31/D/189/2001
Page 5
prisoners were subjected to discriminatory treatment, as part of a general policy of physical and
mental aggression. In support of this claim he explains that he was repeatedly barred from
having contact with others and from engaging in joint prayers. He adds that he was deprived of
medical care, despite repeated requests, threats to go on hunger strike and his refusal to take
exercise in the prison yard. According to the complainant, his family visits were restricted to 10
minutes and the women visitors were forced to remove their veils. The complainant adds that, in
punishment cell No. 2 at Borj Erroumi prison, he was stripped naked and tied hand-and-foot to a
cot for three days on end. He says that he was then subjected to this punishment again for a
period of six days, after requesting medical care for kidney pains. In addition, the warders
punched, slapped and kicked him. According to the complainant, in February 1994, the prison
director beat him viciously while he was on hunger strike and had been placed in shackles and,
in the process, broke his right arm. When the complainant returned from hospital, the prison
director ordered him to be returned to the punishment cells, where he was left shackled for eight
days, naked and without blankets, thereby aggravating his kidney pains. In El Kef prison, where
he spent 10 days in the punishment cells, he had a blanket only from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., despite
the cold temperatures in the town, with the result that for the last three days he was unable to
walk. Finally, a few days before his release, he was placed together with 24 other prisoners in
Tunis central prison in a cell measuring only 3.5 metres by 2 metres. According to the
complainant, with only one very small window high up on the cell wall, it was difficult to
breathe, and the overcrowding was so bad that the detainees were unable even to sit.
2.15 The complainant explains that, in a bid to lessen the torture against him, including
solitary confinement for periods of between 3 days and one and a half months, he was forced on
at least 15 occasions to mount hunger strikes, lasting for periods of between 5 and 28 days.
2.16 On the day of his release, 24 July 1997, the complainant was escorted to the Bouchoucha
detention centre, where he was questioned about his plans for the future as a militant and about
his fellow detainees. According to the complainant, this questioning was followed by a session
of mental harassment and threats. He says that he was released at 4 p.m. with instructions to
report to the local police the moment he arrived in his home region of Gabès. There he was
subjected to further questioning for a period of four hours. He was ordered to report twice a
week to the regional police headquarters and daily at the local police station. According to the
complainant, this administrative supervision was accompanied by police checks, including at
night, of him and his family, the denial of his right to work and to study, refusal to issue a
passport to his father and the confiscation of his brother’s passport. He was also required to
obtain permission from the local police for any movement away from his place of residence, a
requirement which was accompanied by further questioning about his relatives and people with
whom he had contacts. The complainant adds that he was detained for 48 hours in
November 1998, during President Ben Ali’s visit to Gabès governorate. He maintains that,
whenever he had any contact with others living in the neighbourhood, both he and the people he
met would be taken in for questioning.
2.17 Given this situation, the complainant explains that he then fled Tunisia for Switzerland,
where he obtained refugee status.3
3
He entered Swiss territory on 18 March 1999. There is no indication of the date when he obtained refugee status.