Rights groups criticize Italy for deporting Tunisia national at risk of torture News
Rights groups criticize Italy for deporting Tunisia national at risk of torture

[JURIST] Human rights advocates on Wednesday accused Italy of disregarding its obligations under past European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] judgments by deporting terror suspect Ali Ben Sassi Toumi to his native Tunisia. Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the deportation [HRW report] "the latest example of how [Italy] flouts the absolute ban on such returns." Toumi's deportation was ordered despite numerous calls [AI report] on behalf of the ECHR to hold him in Italy due to the potential for torture and bodily harm upon his return to Tunisia. Amnesty International (AI) and other groups have heavily criticized [AI memo] Tunisian prisons, describing serious instances of detainee mistreatment:

Over the years, Amnesty International has received numerous reports of torture and other ill-treatment by the Tunisian security forces. In virtually all cases, allegations of torture are not investigated and the perpetrators are not brought to justice. Individuals are most at risk of torture when in incommunicado detention. The most commonly reported methods of torture are beatings on the body, especially the soles of the feet; suspension by the ankles or in contorted positions; electric shocks; and burning with cigarettes. There are also reports of mock executions, sexual abuse, including rape with bottles and sticks, and threats of sexual abuse of female relatives.

Under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [text], of which Tunisia and Italy are both signatories, the two countries are obligated to protect prisoners within their jurisdictions from torture and physical abuse.

The EHCR previously ruled that Italy should stay the deportations of two other suspected criminals in analogous cases. In June 2008, Sami Ben Khemais Essid was deported to Tunisia, and in December 2008 Mourad Trabelsi was returned despite similar calls from the EHCR. Italy also recently caused concern when it criminalized unauthorized immigration [JURIST report] last month. Italy's treatment of its minority ethnic Roma population has resulted in similar criticism from human rights groups. In February, the Italian government dismantled a number of Roma encampments, and last year it was accused of discrimination when it began recording the fingerprints [JURIST reports] of Roma children in a purported effort to reduce street crime.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.

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