Profile of Sihem Bensedrine

Sihem Bensedrine is the spokesperson of the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (National Council for Freedoms). An untiring human rights activist, she has been persecuted by the Tunisian police for years. She has been the victim of a slanderous, defamatory, sexist, and racist press campaign and has been beaten several times while in police custody.

Bensedrine publishes a web-based French language journal Kalima documenting human rights abuses and press censorship. The website itself is censored in Tunisia. For her appearance on Al Mustaquillah television, critiquing a judge who made defamatory statements regarding torture and corruption, she was charged with defaming the judge.

In 2001 Bensedrine was arrested and sent to prison when she returned from a speaking tour from Europe, where she had addressed the curtailment of civil liberties, including freedom of expression in Tunisia. While she was imprisoned, her husband and daughter traveled to the United Kingdom to collect the Special Award for Human Rights Journalism from Amnesty International.

Bensedrine is the General Secretary of the Observatory for the Defense of the Freedom of the Press, Publishing and Creation (OLPEC), which is a member of Reporters Without Borders. Bensedrine is also a recipient of the 2001 Sakharov Prize.

• Weblinks
• Kalima
• Universal Rights