Algeria-Tunisia: Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yoursTunisian opposition politician and media owner Nabil Karoui and his brother, a member of the Tunisian parliament, were arrested by the Algerian authorities during a trip to the Algerian city of Tebessa, on the border with Tunisia. Karoui, who owns Radio Mosaique FM, heads the Liberal Party Qalb Tounes, and ran for president in the 2019, in elections that ended with the victory of independent academic Kais Saied. It remains unclear as to why Algeria arrested the brothers, but sources in Tunisia say the two were attempting to escape Tunisia where they have been embroiled in political scandals for years.Nabil Karoui founded the private Tunisian channel Nessma TV, which is partly owned by Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Karoui has been under investigation since 2017 in a money laundering and tax evasion case. He was arrested in 2019 and spent more than a month in prison at the height of the presidential election campaign. He was freed but rearrested last December and spent six months in pre-trial detention before being let out again in June 2021. Tunisia has already issued an arrest warrant for Nabil Karoui and his brother. A Kasserine court in central Tunisia issued an arrest warrant for “illegally crossing the border”. Algeria and Tunisia are bound by an agreement stipulating the extradition by either country “of any person prosecuted or convicted” in the other.Tunisia reciprocated by extraditing to Algeria Slimane Bouhafs, an Algerian national who is allegedly close to MAK or the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie region, an organization that has been calling for the autonomy for the region located east of the capital, Algiers. MAK has recently been labeled “terror organization” by the Algerian government.A former police officer, Slimane Bouhafs fled to Tunisia as a refugee, until he disappeared on 25 August 2021 in mysterious circumstances. He was obviously arrested by the Tunisian authorities despite the so-called protection given to him by Tunisian under the global refugee treaties. Bouhafs was under the protection of UNHCR (UN Refugee Office), which apparently did not intervene to prevent his extradition.Previously, Slimane Bouhafs was arrested in 2016 in Algeria, accused of publishing on the Internet writings deemed offensive to Islam. The activist, who is of Christian confession, remained in prison for two years, before being released.Algeria also issued an international arrest warrant against Ferhat Mehenni, the President of MAK, who resides in France. Algeria and France signed in May 2021 an extradition agreement, but it is uncertain whether French courts will agree with the terms of the arrest warrant.In recent weeks, Tunisia has been leading an anti-corruption campaign targeted at the political and business worlds, resulting in the firing of some 30 senior Tunisian officials. In his quest to reduce influences in politics, Tunisian president Kais Saied has focused his attention on so-called oligarchs, including media mogul Nabil Karoui. His arrest and that of his brother in Algeria coincided with the news that Tunisia agreed to extradite Algerian activist Slimane Bouhafs. There is a strong likelihood that Bouhafs was delivered to Algiers in exchange for Nabil Karoui. |
Rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday called on Tunisia to investigate the “extremely serious” return to Algeria of political activist Slimane Bouhafs, who it said had refugee status in Tunisia. Late Wednesday, an Algerian rights group said he had been placed under a judicial committal order. According to Amnesty and some 40 other rights groups, the Algerian disappeared from his home in Tunis on August 25 “in mysterious circumstances”. Citing Algerian media, the groups said Tunisian authorities had handed the 54-year-old over to Algeria to face court.
Amnesty’s Amna Guellali said Bouhafs reappeared in Algiers on August 28 or 29, “several days after his forced disappearance”. She told AFP it was imperative Tunisia carry out an “impartial and thorough” investigation into “the circumstances of the kidnapping, forced disappearance and expulsion of Slimane Bouhafs to Algeria, despite his political refugee status”. Bouhafs was a “prisoner of conscience” who had spent two years in prison “simply because he wrote things on his Facebook page that the Algerian authorities didn’t like”, she said. She said the matter was “extremely serious” as it impacts a person who had obtained political refugee status, demonstrating “that he faced persecution in his country”.
Bouhafs was sentenced to jail in 2016 for “insulting Islam”. He has also been active in the Movement for Self-determination of Kabylie (MAK), which Algeria considers a “terrorist” organisation. Algeria’s CNLD prisoners’ rights group said later Wednesday that Bouhafs had been placed under a committal order. Separately, Algeria’s Human Rights League (LADDH) has called on the UN refugee agency in Algiers to intervene in the matter, adding that Bouhafs should benefit from “the protection of the international convention on the rights of refugees, ratified by Tunisia and Algeria”. Tunisian rights groups said the UN gave Bouhafs refugee status in September last year. “The Slimane Bouhafs affair is an ominous sign for rights and freedoms in Tunisia, given that he is a political refugee whose rights have been completely violated,” Guellali said.
