April 20, 2001

Academics in Tunisia Under Attack

By DANIEL DEL CASTILLO

In an open letter to Tunisia's president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, several prominent human-rights agencies and academic associations called for an end to a recent pattern of attacks against academics in an apparent campaign by the government to silence its critics.

Since December, when the Tunisian human-rights activist Moncef Marzouki was sentenced to a year in prison for belonging to the banned National Council on Liberties, an increasing number of academics and journalists have been