WRITTEN QUESTION E-3031/02 by Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission. Very worrying plight of Mr Mohamed Kamel Hamzaoui.
Date: 2002-10-23
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU relations, Tunisia, barring of penalties by limitation, human rights, political prisoner, prison system

C 192 E/90

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

14.8.2003

implemented by 22 March 2002. Articles 5 and 6, communication safeguards and specific assistance to the
victim, are to be implemented by 22 March 2004. Article 10, penal mediation in the course of criminal
proceedings, is to be implemented by 22 March 2006.

(1) OJ L 82, 22.3.2001.

(2003/C 192 E/089)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3031/02

by Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission

(23 October 2002)

Subject: Very worrying plight of Mr Mohamed Kamel Hamzaoui

According to reliable sources, including the World Organisation Against Torture, Mr Hamzaoui, who is a
former member of the RCD Central Committee and a former mayor of Kasserine, has been sentenced to
several terms of imprisonment by the Tunisian courts. After spending more than 10 months at the Charles
Nicole Hospital in Tunis for health reasons, he was transferred by the police to the Tunis civil prison on
17 August 2002. Following a stroke Mr Hamzaoui has serious mobility problems, very poor eyesight and
an oedema in one arm. His very high blood pressure also shows that he urgently needs proper treatment.
On 28 September 2002 the Tunis civil prison staff informed Mr Hamzaoui’s family, who had come to visit
him, that he had been transferred to the police hospital at Marsa. Since that date the family has not been
able to see him or even send him a blanket and food. According to a reliable source the doctors who
reputedly examined him at the police hospital apparently told him that the Charles Nicole Hospital would
be more suitable to provide the care that he needs.

Is the Commission aware of the very worrying plight of Mr Hamzaoui? Has the Commission made
representations to the Tunisian authorities for Mr Hamzaoui to be released on humanitarian grounds and,
pending his release, to receive without hindrance the medical treatment he needs and visits from his
family? More generally, does the Commission not feel that the persecution affecting Mr Hamzaoui, as a
member of the RCD, the party of the President-dictator Ben Ali, is evidence of a disturbing increase in the
Tunisian regime’s desperate efforts to stay in power?

Answer from Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(18 November 2002)

The Commission would like to thank the honourable Member of Parliament for drawing its attention to
the plight of Mr Mohamed Kamel Hamzaoui, about whom it has received information.

In the case of Mr Hamzaoui and other detainees, the matter at issue is prison conditions in Tunisia.
A number of testimonies collected during recent months paint an extremely negative picture. Moreover, at
a recent meeting of
the European Union called upon the
authorities to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), whose intervention
concerning prison conditions in Tunisia would be particularly welcomed.

the EU-Tunisia Association Committee,

On a different level, the Commission is working towards the modernisation of the Tunisian justice system,
by means of a programme in preparation in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Association
Agreements (MEDA).

The European Union, with the help of its heads of mission in Tunis, will continue to take the necessary
steps in order to improve the human rights situation in Tunisia.