TUNISIA: A leading Tunisian lawyer and human rights activist has gone on hunger strike over the alleged torture of her imprisoned husband and the harassment of her family, writes Paul Cullen, Development Correspondent
Ms Radhia Nasraoui, who attended the Front Line conference in Dublin earlier this year, is in the seventh day of her hunger-strike in Tunis.
The director of Front Line, Ms Mary Lawlor, last night called on the Tunisian government to allow Ms Nasraoui to carry out her legitimate human rights work "without fear or intimidation" and to release her husband, Mr Hamma Hammami, immediately.
Mr Hammami, leader of the Communist Workers' Party of Tunisia, had a nine-year jail sentence confirmed at a chaotic court hearing last February. As he emerged from four years in hiding, human-rights activists alleged that police beat people up in the crowd outside the court.
"Radhia Nasraoui is a brave and noble woman working for a civil and just society in Tunisia, yet she and her family are being subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment by the Tunisian government," Ms Lawlor said.
According to Ms Lawlor, Ms Nasraoui has had her phone lines cut and is under constant surveillance. She had not been given permission to visit her husband since April, she said..
Her daughter, Ouseima, was beaten by police during Mr Hammami's court hearing and fell to the floor during scuffles as she tried to cling on to her father.
