Rights questions over Tunisia trip

Human rights issues are overshadowing Nicolas Sarkozy’s state visit to Tunisia this week.

While he was expected to thrash out commercial deals and plug his Mediterranean Union project, campaigners have been critical of his failure so far to speak out against alleged human rights abuses in the North African country.

Sarkozy is in Tunisia with seven government ministers and 120 businesspeople for his second visit since his election.

He is hoping to make a deal to sell Airbus planes to Tunis Air, to supply Alstom conventional power station equipment and to build a nuclear power station.

Three months before a Mediterranean Union summit in Paris, Sarkozy is also expected to focus on this topic in a key speech.

The Tunisian president is known to support the plan for Mediterranean countries to build closer links.

However the human rights issue has been attracting attention - two journalists from the opposition party have gone on hunger strike to attract attention to “the serious deterioration of press freedom.”

Khadifa Cherif, president of the Tunisian Association of Democrat Women has denounced alleged corruption in the legal system and use of torture.

Sarkozy’s interview last Sunday in the Achourouq newspaper, in which he spoke of his esteem and support for President Ben Ali (pictured), has also stoked concerns.

The paper regularly denounces leading human rights campaigners as “creatures of the Devil.”

Photo: Foreign Affairs Ministry_Photographic Service