Brussels, 30 January 2003. On 16 January 2003, Mr Abderraouf Ayadi, Secretary General of the CNLT and a member of the Board of the Association of Barristers, was harassed by border police on his return from a trip to Paris. He was subjected to a body search and had all his personal papers confiscated (CNLT document, case files, publications) in flagrant violation of the laws in force.

Mr Ayadi had already suffered similar harassment on 9 January, on his departure for Paris. These recent episodes join a long list of attacks against lawyers and judges on the part of the Tunisian authorities.

Question from Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party and Member of the European Parliament, to the European Commission

“What does the Commission think of the systematic recourse by the Tunisian authorities to intimidation, of various kinds, of lawyers and judges? What action has the Commission taken, or does it intend to take, to lead the Tunisian authorities to put an end to this sort of harassment? More generally, what does the Commission think of the continuous deterioration of the situation of human rights in Tunisia?”

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