Tunisian security forces have tortured thousands of prisoners and killed dozens more, Amnesty International's French section said yesterday after the country's president flatly denied any human rights abuses.
"From the end of 1990, torture has become a widespread practice, and since this date thousands of prisoners have been tortured and dozens killed following torture," Amnesty stated.
Torture takes place in police stations but "more often" in interior ministry buildings where prisoners are secretly detained, a statement by the human rights group continued.
"The Tunisian government cannot pretend not to be informed that torture is widespread," it said, after Tunisian President Zine Abidine Ben Ali earlier denied such claims on the second day of an official visit to Paris, intended to build links between the two countries.
Mr Ben Ali had denied his country was holding any political prisoners and rejected accusations of human rights abuses. "We do not have political prisoners," Mr Ben Ali told AITV-RFO television, while issuing an invitation to critics to "come and see" the truth.
French President Jacques Chirac, after meeting Mr Ben Ali yesterday, praised reforms in Tunisia, but added that that states with "rights and democracy can progress best".
It was best to have friendly links with states criticised of human rights abuses "to give them another direction", Chirac continued.
"When I see what is happening in Algeria, I prefer what is happening in Tunisia," the French president also said.
For his part, the French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, who also met Mr Ben Ali, encouraged Tunisia to embrace "democracy and pluralism", but expressed understanding for the problems of creating an "open economy".
However, Mr Alain Bocquet, head of the Communist Party group in the French National Assembly, refused to attend a reception for Mr Ben Ali, saying he was "troubled" by the visit in the light of Tunisia's human rights record.
Amnesty said Tunisia was guilty of ignoring the United Nations' 1988 convention against torture, and that it had failed to make a report to the UN's Committee Against Torture due in 1993. Amnesty International estimates there are 2,000 political prisoners in Tunisia, most of whom are accused of supporting the outlawed Islamist group Ennahda.