Rachida Ben Salem, a mother of two, and the wife of a supporter of an Islamist group, is being held in incommunicado detention in Tunis where she is feared to be at risk of torture or ill-treatment. She was arrested on 18 May 1997 as she was reportedly intending to cross into Libya with her two daughters. She has been arrested on several previous occasions, and after her husband fled the country, she lost her job and has been unable to obtain a passport in order to join her husband, who has refugee status in Holland. Amnesty International is concerned that the denial of her passport and her subsequent detention have been motivated by her family relationship to political opponents, and that she is a prisoner of conscience.
