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The Tunisian Journalists Union (SNJT) protests against the sentencing of journalist Khalifa Guesmi to five years in prison in Tunis, Tunisia, May 18, 2023. 
© 2023 Mohamed Krit/Sipa via AP Photo

(Tunis) – Tunisian authorities have sentenced two political opposition activists to prison terms for criticizing the government under a 2022 cybercrime decree, Human Rights Watch said today. Instead of using the decree to address cybercrime, the authorities have used it to detain, charge, or place under investigation at least 20 journalists, lawyers, students, and other critics for their public statements online or in the media.

Chaima Issa, a prominent figure of the opposition coalition National Salvation Front (NSF), and Sofiane Zneidi, a member of Tunisia’s largest opposition party, Ennahda, were sentenced on December 11 and 13, respectively, apparently the first two people sentenced under the decree. President Kais Saied issued Decree-Law no. 2022-54 on Combating Crimes Related to Information and Communication Systems on September 13, 2022, as part of the consolidation of his autocratic rule since he took office in July 2021. The authorities should repeal this repressive decree, release those held under it, and drop all prosecutions for peaceful expression, Human Rights Watch said.

“In the year since the president issued his cybercrime law, the Tunisian authorities have used it to stifle and intimidate a wide range of critics, while using other laws to detain some of Saied’s most serious political adversaries on dubious conspiracy charges,” said Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch. “Tunisia should immediately release anyone detained for their peaceful expression, drop all charges, and repeal Decree-Law 54.” 

Decree-Law 54, which aims officially at “preventing and prosecuting offenses relating to information and communication systems” and setting forth provisions for authorities to “collect electronic evidence,” introduces harsh sentences for broadly and vaguely defined speech offenses, such as “spreading false information.” Since February, authorities have intensified their crackdown on critics across the political spectrum. More than 40 people have been arbitrarily detained for their peaceful activism or expression, mostly on “conspiracy” or dubious terrorism-related charges. Almost all of them have been held for months, some over a year, in pretrial detention.

The authorities have been relying on the cybercrime decree’s Article 24, which provides for a fine of up to TND 50,000 (about US$16,000) and five years in prison for using communication networks to “produce, spread, disseminate … false news, data, rumors” to “slander others, tarnish their reputation, financially or morally harm them, incite attacks against [them] or incite hate speech,” “violate [their] rights,” “harm public security or national defense, or spread terror.” The prison sentence is doubled if the offense is deemed to target a “public official or equivalent.” 

On December 11, the Jendouba First Instance Court sentenced Zneidi, 63, to eight months in jail and a TND 5,000 (about $1,630) fine under Article 24, a person familiar with the file told Human Rights Watch. Zneidi, who has been in Bulla Regia jail in Jendouba governorate, has been detained since April 18, 2023. That day, National Guard officers arrested him at his home in the northwestern city of Tabarka for Facebook posts in support of Ennahda President Rached Ghannouchi after Ghannouchi was arrested on April 17, Zineb Brahmi, the party’s main lawyer, told Human Rights Watch.

During the investigation, the judicial police and later an investigative judge questioned Zneidi about his political affiliation and the “motives” behind his posts, which Zneidi quickly deleted, according to the person familiar with the file. In one post, Zneidi condemned Ghannouchi’s arrest and in another included a video clip of Ghannouchi warning that alienating opposition political movements was a “recipe for civil war.”

The judge also initially accused Zneidi of “insulting the president” under Article 67 of the Penal Code, although the president was neither named nor clearly designated in Zneidi’s posts, the same source said. Ghannouchi’s video showed him making the remarks for which he himself was detained on April 20 and could face the death penalty on charges of attempting to “change the nature of the state.”

On December 13, a military court sentenced Issa to a one-year suspended prison term, including two months under Article 24 of Decree-Law 54, six months for “inciting the army to disobey orders” under Article 81 of the Military Justice Code, and four months for “insulting the president,” according to her lawyer Dalila Msaddak, for comments Issa made during an interview in December 2022 on radio station IFM about the military’s role since Saied’s power grab. The judicial proceedings were initiated in January following a complaint by former Interior Minister Taoufik Charfeddine.

Trying Issa, a civilian, before a military court is contrary to international standards on the right to a fair trial which strictly prohibit governments from using military courts to try civilians when civilian courts can still function. In a separate case, Issa was arbitrarily detained in February for “conspiracy against state security” and conditionally released in July, pending trial. 

Beside Zneidi, at least two other people were detained based on Article 24. Mohamed Zantour, a 26-year-old Ennahda supporter, was detained from April 26 to July 21 for Facebook posts, including posts he later took down, that criticized Saied, supported Ghannouchi, and denounced police brutality, his lawyer Zouheir Belhaj Amor told Human Rights Watch.

On July 21, the Sousse First Instance Court gave Zantour a suspended prison sentence of six months for “harming third parties through public telecommunications networks” under Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code and ordered his release, dropping the charges related to Decree-Law 54, Belhaj Amor said.

Yassine Romdhani, a journalist for radio station Sabra FM, was detained from October 3 to December 1 and charged by an investigative judge in the Kairouan First Instance Court for an August Facebook post criticizing Charfeddine, based on a complaint by the latter. Romdhani is provisionally free pending his trial, his lawyer Magda Mastour told Human Rights Watch. 

At least six other people are being prosecuted under the same legislation, including Ghazi Chaouachi, Ayachi Hammami, Islem Hamza, and Dalila Msaddak, all lawyers; Borhen Bsaies, of IFM Radio and also a Hannibal TV host; and Sami Ben Slama, a former elections commission member.

At least 12 others are under police investigation in separate cases. They are Mehdi Zagrouba, a lawyer; Jawhar Ben Mbarek, an NSF leader; Nizar Bahloul, Monia Arfaoui, Amine Dhbaibi, Haythem El Mekki, Elyes Gharbi and Mohamed Boughalleb, all journalists; Ahmed Hamada and Yahya Shili, students; Sonia Dahmani, a lawyer and media figure; and Zaki Rahmouni, a former elections commission member.

Most of the 22 cases Human Rights Watch documented were initiated on the basis of complaints filed by government officials or entities. Justice Minister Leila Jaffel filed at least five complaints, Religious Affairs Minister Brahim Chaibi filed three, Charfeddine filed two, the Prison General Authority filed two, and a police union filed two.

In violation of the right to privacy, Decree-Law 54 also requires telecommunications companies to systematically store data on users’ identity, telecommunications traffic, and metadata for at least two years (Article 6), and empowers the authorities, upon a judicial order, to seize personal devices, track individuals, and intercept their communications to “unveil the truth” (Article 9).

Tunisia had been seeking to adopt a comprehensive cybercrime law since at least 2015. Although Decree-Law 54 was officially introduced as fulfilling this objective, it has mostly expanded the definition of criminal offenses and toughened sanctions to restrict critical online expression, breaching international standards on freedom of expression.

The authorities also continue to rely on repressive Penal and Telecommunications Codes provisions to criminalize peaceful speech.

“Saied and his government could have issued this legislation to make cyberspace and its users safer, but instead, they instrumentalized Decree-Law 54 to curb Tunisians’ rights,” Chellali said. “Under such a decree, no critic of the authorities can feel safe.” 

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Tofig Yagublu, in Baku, Azerbaijan, December 1, 2023. 
© 2023 Ulviyya Ali

(Berlin, December 19, 2023) – Azerbaijani authorities have arrested a prominent opposition leader and unrelenting government critic, Tofig Yagublu, on bogus forgery and fraud charges, Human Rights Watch said today. Yagublu’s arrest is the latest in a series of arrests in Azerbaijan targeting journalists and other government critics.

Police arrested Yagublu, 62, a former journalist who is an outspoken critic of the government, on December 14, 2023, as he was exiting the metro in central Baku. He is a member of the opposition Musavat Party and a senior politician in the National Council of Democratic Forces, a coalition of opposition parties and activists in Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijani authorities are continuing their assault on government opponents, journalists and other critics,” said Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Tofig Yagublu’s arrest falls into the pattern of silencing the country’s critical voices.”

On December 15, the Narimanov District Court of Baku ordered four months in pretrial custody for Yagublu, pending investigation on forgery and fraud charges. The prosecutor’s office had requested pretrial detention, contending that Yagublu would abscond or interfere with the investigation without producing any information to substantiate this claim. The court also referenced the nature and gravity of the offense allegedly committed by Yagublu when granting the pretrial detention.

The decision to send Yagublu for pretrial detention on unsubstantiated pro forma grounds violates standards against arbitrary detention required by the European Convention of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch said.

On December 14, police searched Yagublu’s home, where they claim to have found in his bed €5,000 (US$5,465), 2,500 Azerbaijani manat (US$1,500) and an unspecified amount in US dollars. The authorities allege that Yagublu conspired with someone else to provide fake documents to a third party to supposedly help him build an asylum claim. The alleged co-conspirator has been implicated in other politically motivated cases, Human Rights Watch said.

Yagublu rejects all accusations and says that he has been targeted because of his political activism.

Yagublu’s wife, Maya Yagublu, was home alone when about 20 policemen appeared at their door. A group of officers told her to follow them upstairs, while others stayed on the first floor. After finishing the search upstairs, they went downstairs to the bedroom she shares with her husband, told her to lift the pillows on the bed, and then claimed to “discover” the cash. “My mom was shocked to see so much cash,” their daughter, Nigar Hezi, told Human Rights Watch. “A day before, she had to borrow money from our neighbor because she did not have enough to complete her dental treatment.”

During the search, police confiscated the Wi-Fi router, Maya Yagublu’s phone, and an old laptop. They also took the notebook that she kept for all outstanding debts as well as an address and telephone notebook. None of the confiscated items have been returned.

In December 2022, police installed three security cameras across the street from Yagublu’s home, most likely tracking all movement around his private residence.

This is not Yagublu’s first arrest. Azerbaijani authorities have periodically arrested Yagublu, subjected him to ill-treatment, and warned him to stop his political activism and criticism of the government. Yagublu previously spent three years behind bars on spurious incitement charges between 2013 and 2016. In 2020, a court sentenced him to four years and three months on hooliganism charges. In September 2020, the authorities granted him an early release.

Yagublu’s arrest is the latest in a series of at least 12 arrests targeting opponents, journalists, and other government critics since November 20. The authorities charged them with various criminal offenses, including smuggling, illegal entrepreneurship, and hooliganism. Courts have sent at least 11 of them to pretrial custody for up to four months after perfunctory hearings.

“The Azerbaijani government’s witch hunt against critics is one manifestation of its contempt for free speech and human rights protections,” Gogia said. “The authorities should immediately free Yagublu and end the crackdown on critical journalists and opposition activists.”

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President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, meets with the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, June 15, 2022 © 2022 Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations.
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(Brussels) – The European Union’s negotiations on an upgraded bilateral partnership with Egypt risk missing an opportunity to press for human rights reforms in the midst of the country’s ongoing economic and human rights crises, Human Rights Watch said today, in releasing a December 6, 2023, letter to EU leaders and member states.

The partnership will likely include additional political and economic support for Egypt without addressing some of the root causes of the country’s dire economic situation, including its brutal and systematic repression. The EU will risk complicity in further abuses unless it takes steps to ensure it is not funding them. Human Rights Watch criticized the proposed partnership and the EU’s longstanding reluctance to address the Egyptian government’s abuses, and urged the bloc to leverage its upcoming support package to secure structural improvements to Egypt’s abysmal human rights record. 

“Egypt’s economic woes are deeply intertwined with its ongoing human rights crisis, and you can’t address one without the other,” said Claudio Francavilla, senior EU advocate at Human Rights Watch. “Pervasive repression, mismanagement, and corruption have brought Egypt to the brink of economic collapse and will continue unabated unless Egypt’s allies get serious about the need for human rights progress and reforms.” 

The negotiations for a “strategic partnership” with Egypt follow EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s regrettable pledge in July to use the controversial EU-Tunisia deal as a “blueprint” for the region. That approach implies providing financial incentives for Mediterranean countries to prevent migrants’ departures toward Europe, while overlooking their poor human rights records and emboldening authoritarian rule in the region. 

Since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s military coup in 2013, Egypt has been ruled with an iron fist. Thousands of perceived critics have been arbitrarily jailed, often in horrendous conditions. The judiciary has been reduced to an obedient tool of the government’s repression; and opposition, independent civil society, and free media have been nearly wiped out. This has made it virtually impossible for Egyptians to monitor, expose, and criticize their government’s economic mismanagement, corruption, and human rights abuses. Al-Sisi has just secured a third six-year term in office, following a campaign of arrests, intimidation, and onerous requirements for candidates that effectively prevented any meaningful competition.

Under his rule, the military has strengthened its control over all aspects of Egyptians’ lives. In December 2020 and February 2021, the government arrested businessmen Safwan Thabet and Seif Thabet, reportedly for their refusal to surrender their shares in their company to a state-owned business. The two were finally released in January 2023. Egyptian authorities also failed to credibly investigate the suspicious death of a renowned economist, Ayman Hadhoud, who was forcibly disappeared on February 5, 2022, and died in detention one month later. Egypt’s security forces are notorious for their systematic torture and other ill-treatment, and denial of timely and adequate health care to people in detention. 

The government’s abusive policies have contributed to a spiraling economic crisis that, according to analysts, makes Egypt second only to Ukraine as a country most at-risk of defaulting on its debt. In January, the International Monetary Fund approved a US$3 billion loan agreement with Egypt, the fourth since 2016. While the agreement includes some efforts to address deep-seated structural problems such as the opaque role of the military in the economy and inadequate social protection, other provisions, such as austerity measures and the sale of state assets, risk harming rights.

Yet the EU seems determined to insist only on the implementation of the IMF requests as preconditions to provide further EU direct support to Egypt. Human rights continue to be relegated to sporadic, largely fruitless discussions with the Egyptian authorities, which are expected to become even less productive as Egyptian authorities point to the double standards within parts of the EU toward the ongoing Gaza crisis.  

The enhanced EU support package, still under negotiation both bilaterally with Egypt and among EU member states, is expected to include at least hundreds of millions of euros of direct support. It is also expected to pave the way for loans by the European Investment Banks and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that could lead to a cash influx of €9 billion to Egypt. 

Migration remains a key component of the EU’s bilateral cooperation with Egypt. The EU already approved €110 million (about $120 million) to boost Egypt’s border and coast guard capabilities, and is expected to provide three search and rescue boats to Egypt. More money is expected to flow as part of the new support package. 

Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuses by the Egyptian authorities against asylum seekers and refugees, including arbitrary detention and physical abuse, detention of children, unlawful deportation of Eritrean asylum seekers amounting to refoulement, and failure to protect vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers from pervasive sexual violence. Egypt has also blocked people fleeing Sudan’s conflict from entering without visas, creating life-threatening delays in access to asylum. 

There are also growing concerns about a possible mass influx of people into Egypt from Gaza, where the Israeli government’s actions against Gaza’s civilian population, including war crimes, have created a humanitarian catastrophe. Human Rights Watch has warned Israel’s and Egypt’s international partners about the risk of complicity in the war crime of forced displacement.  

Egypt’s North Sinai region, which borders Gaza, is also a conflict area where Egypt’s military and police forces are committing serious and widespread abuses against civilians. Some of these abuses, part of an ongoing campaign against members of the local ISIS affiliate, the Sinai Province group, amount to war crimes. 

Any bilateral cooperation on migration with Egypt should be preceded by thorough due diligence to ensure that no EU funding contributes to abuses against migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers. The EU should at the outset press Egypt to end the pervasive practice of torture and other forms of persecution, and ensure that those fleeing violations have access to international protection. 

“Stepping up support for Egypt’s abusive authorities without human rights guarantees is a guarantee for further human rights abuses,” Francavilla said. “The EU knows that all too well, but is so blinded by its obsession to contain migration at any cost that it is ready to trash its own human rights commitments, embolden oppression, and accept complicity in abuses.” 

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Fatima al-Arwali. 
© Private

(Beirut) – Houthi authorities have sentenced a human rights defender to death based on charges of espionage and “aid[ing] the enemy,” Human Rights Watch said today. They should quash the verdict and end their escalating repression of residents’ free expression and women’s rights.

On December 5, 2023, the Specialized Criminal Prosecution in Sanaa, which has been controlled by the Houthis along with much of northern Yemen since 2014, convicted and sentenced to death Fatima Saleh al-Arwali, a 35-year-old human rights defender and the former head of the Yemen office of the Arab League’s Union of Women Leaders, on charges of collaborating with the enemy—in this case, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). She had no legal representation at the trial, and her family has only been able to contact her twice from detention since she was arrested in August 2022.

“Repression of human rights defenders and women’s rights activists in Houthi-controlled territories is reaching terrifying new levels,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of providing people in their territory with basic necessities such as food and water, the Houthis are suppressing human rights and freedoms.”

Human Rights Watch spoke with four people with firsthand knowledge of Arwali’s case and her detention conditions, including her brother, Mohammed, as well as a lawyer who tried to represent her, and reviewed court documents and other reports of her case.

The sources said that Arwali was arrested on August 12, 2022, while on her way from Aden to Sanaa, at a Houthi-controlled checkpoint entering al-Hawban district in Taizz. Her lawyer said she had just returned from visiting her mother in the UAE, where her family lives and she was born. She called her brother at the checkpoint to tell him that the Houthis had stopped her, and her family didn’t hear from her again until January 2023.

A letter to the Houthi foreign minister from United Nations special rapporteurs said the Houthi Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) forcibly disappeared her and provided no access to legal counsel, and she had only been able to contact her family twice since being detained. They said that “the Houthi authorities initially denied any knowledge of her arrest or whereabouts when asked by her lawyer.”

On July 31, Arwali’s lawyer learned that the Houthis had charged her with “aid[ing] the enemy [the UAE],” according to the official indictment issued by the Specialized Criminal Prosecution on July 31, which Human Rights Watch reviewed. The documents state that Arwali was “recruited to work with UAE intelligence officers who are overseeing and supervising the war and aggression on Yemen,” and that she “agreed to provide them with sensitive information and locations of the [Yemeni] army and popular committees.” The Prosecution did not offer any public evidence to support these charges.

Arwali has previously criticized Yemeni authorities on her social media account and had also regularly posted about women’s and children’s rights and child recruitment in the conflict between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, which is supported by the Saudi and UAE-led coalition.

Arwali’s lawyer posted on social media on September 19 that at her initial hearing that day, she agreed to have him as her legal counsel. The lawyer told the judge that he was there to represent her, which she confirmed. However, when the lawyer asked Arwali to request a copy of her case and charges, an intelligence officer ordered him to leave the courtroom. He said that as he was leaving the courtroom, he heard the judge telling Arwali that “she will not need a lawyer and [the lawyer] can do nothing for her.”

One source said that since the Houthis took over Sanaa in 2014, “this happens regularly … when someone is arrested by the security and intelligence department, they bring them to the court and ask them to admit everything [and state that] otherwise they will torture them, so that he or she will confess to the charges.”

After that, the sources said, neither her family members nor any lawyers were able to get in touch with her before her trial on December 5. At the trial, the Specialized Criminal Prosecution sentenced Arwali to death, stating that she had confessed to recruiting people to support her in gathering intelligence for the UAE as well as impersonating another woman. It is unclear whether Arwali confessed and if so, under what conditions.

The last phone contact her family had with her, her brother said, was before the September hearing. “Her brother tried to visit her many times,” the lawyer said. “I wrote a letter for her brother to provide to the authorities, asking them to allow him to visit his sister, but the SIS kept refusing to allow her to meet anyone. They claimed that she didn’t want to meet anyone.”

Her lawyer said that her family submitted several official requests to visit her, including in December 2022 and March 2023, which Human Rights Watch reviewed. Though the chief prosecutor approved both requests, the intelligence service blocked the visits.

Due to the lack of communication, it is difficult to know what conditions Arwali faces in detention. Her lawyer said that at the September hearing, she said that she was being kept in a small, moldy room without a window. One person who was in the courtroom that day said she told the judge that her room was “so bad and moldy that I can’t even pray in it.”

One of Arwali’s brothers was also able to briefly speak with her during the September hearing. Mohammed said that Arwali had told another brother that they had injected her with unknown substances, and she showed him bruises, saying she had been hit on her head. Mohammed said that his brother had said their sister “looked sick, exhausted, and weak. She might have lost 10-15 kilograms.” Mohammed added that his sister has diabetes, and that at the trial, Arwali asked whether her family could bring her medicine and money, but that the judge denied this request.

Human Rights Watch was not able to obtain further information about Arwali’s condition in prison. According to the report by the UN special rapporteurs, “it is not known under what condition Ms. Al-Arwali’s interrogations took place, nor how she has been treated while in detention.”

Many groups, including Human Rights Watch, have reported on systematic abuse in Houthi prisons. In their 2023 report, the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Yemen found that “Houthi-held prisoners are subjected to systematic psychological and physical torture, including the denial of medical intervention to cure the injuries caused by the torture inflicted, which for some prisoners resulted in permanent disabilities and death.” They also found that detained women are “subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment … [and are] also sexually assaulted, in some cases subjected to virginity tests, and are often prevented from gaining access to essential goods, including feminine hygiene products.”

The “whole family is living through a very difficult time right now,” Mohammed said. “My mother … she is an old woman watching her only daughter be detained, tortured, and sentenced to death, and the family’s children are shocked by what has happened. The whole family is scared now about what will happen to Fatima, as well what will happen to us if we go home [to Yemen].”

According to Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, the Houthis have sentenced 350 people to death since taking over the capital in 2014 and have executed 11 of them. On September 18, 2021, Houthi forces executed 9 people, reportedly including a 17-year-old, in Sanaa’s Tahrir Square. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that “the defendants were sentenced to death in a judicial process that violated their constitutional rights and did not comply with fair trial standards under international law.”

The Houthis have also detained, forcibly disappeared, and abused scores of people, including perceived political opponents, students, journalists, and activists. Mwatana for Human Rights, a Yemeni civil society organization, has documented 1,482 cases of arbitrary detention and 596 cases of enforced disappearance by Houthi authorities between 2015 and April 2023.

International human rights standards, including the Arab Charter on Human Rights, ratified by Yemen, obligate countries that use the death penalty to use it only for the “most serious crimes” and in exceptional circumstances.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all countries and under all circumstances. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and it is inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.

“The Houthis are slowly making life unlivable for both women and human rights defenders in their territories,” Jafarnia said. “The Houthis should immediately give Fatima a fair trial and should end their widespread repression of women and human rights defenders in their territories.”