HUMAN-RIGHTS-IN-TUNISIA.Pdf

1 INTRODUCTION Paris Francophone Institute for Freedoms (PFIF) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization devoted to the promotion and reinforcement of commitments to the ethics, principles, and norms of human rights. Paris Francophone Institute (PFIF) is located in Paris and works within the international humanitarian law and the international agreements of human rights. It takes a look at the human rights situation in Tunisia. But first, let’s take a look at the country. Tunisia is the northernmost African country and is bordered by Algeria, Libya, and the Mediterranean Sea. The population is a little over 10.9 million and an area of 165,000 sq. km. The capital is Tunis and it located the north-east part of the country. Tunisia has played an important role in history. It was the location of the city of Carthage and later the Roman Africa Province. The Vandals occupied it in the 5th century, the Byzantines in the 6th, and the Arabs in the 8th. It called the “Regency of Tunis” under the Ottomans and became a French protectorate in 1881. In 1956, it gained independence as the Kingdom of Tunisia. Habib Bourguiba is the president after a republic was declared in 1957. Tunisia is liberalizing its economy and is export-oriented. The country’s relations with the EU are close and it has an association agreement. The Arab world has close ties to Tunisia as well and it is a member of the Arab League. Tunisia also belongs to the African Union. Tunisia is a Republican presidential system with a bicameral parliament. The two houses are the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of Advisors. Since 1987, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been the authoritarian president. He took over for Habib Bouguiba after medical experts said he could no longer perform the functions of his office. Ben Ali was a minister for Bourguiba. 2 The President is re-elected every five years with large majorities. The president also appoints a cabinet and a prime minister, but they play only a minor role in government. The Chamber of Deputies is the bicameral legislature with 182 seats. The other house is the Chamber of Advisors. Both chambers have over 20 percent women members. There is not an independent judiciary which is a major cause for alarm in a country that wants to protect the human rights of the citizens. The army does not participate in politics, but Ben Ali is a former army figure. The political system has been reformed several times since 1987 and life presidency was abolished and opposition parties were allowed. In reality, the President holds all of the practical power along with his party (Africa.com 2018). CURRENT HUMAN RIGHT CONDITIONS The issue of human rights in Tunisia is complex and in some regards, confusing in some ways after the Tunisian revolution that began in January 2011 and overthrew the longstanding dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia is often heralded as the sole success story to come out of the 2011 Arab uprisings, insomuch as it is the only country that established a democratic government in their wake. In a 2017 study conducted by Freedom House, Tunisia was the only country in the Middle East and North Africa ranked as free. But the relative success of Tunisia’s transition does not mean that it happened without challenges. The country’s seven-year-long change to democracy has been very difficult, marked by several terrorist attacks, ongoing economic crisis, political stalemate, and tenuous compromises between Islamists and secularists. At several points since the overthrow of former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians have 3 been forced to question whether their democratic experiment will survive the pressure. This is because the immediate months after the revolution were followed by significant improvements in the status of human rights; some of those advances have since been reversed. The situation remains in a state of flux, with different observers providing virtually irreconcilable accounts of the current status of human rights in that country. The 2014 constitution of Tunisia guarantees key civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights. However, Tunisian authorities have made little progress in overhauling legislation that fails to comply with the constitution, particularly the penal code and code of criminal procedures. Several people have been prosecuted for alleged defamation or insult of state officials and on charges of harming public order and a few journalists and bloggers for publishing information or their opinions. Many Tunisians will say that it is the civil societies that have been instrumental in holding together the fabric of their democracy. Civil society was deeply repressed during the decades of Ben Ali’s rule and flourished in the post-revolution period. Thousands of civil society organizations (CSOs) were formed, with missions ranging from protecting human rights to monitoring the government to fighting corruption. CSO efforts have been behind most of the important human rights advances in Tunisia and have helped keep the government on track and accountable. In 2015, four CSOs (two labor unions, the Tunisian Human Rights League, and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in brokering an important 2013 compromise between Islamists and secularists that is widely believed to have saved the country’s democracy (Yerkes 2018). 4 TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT Human rights lawyers in Tunisia have continued to report cases of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, mostly during arrest and in pre-charge detention in regular criminal cases and national security cases. In March and April, the Parliamentary Committee on Rights, Liberties and External Relations invited Amnesty International to brief them after the Prime Minister said that the government would investigate claims made by Amnesty International regarding abuses by security forces, including torture. It subsequently held four further sessions on torture: one session each with Amnesty International, two Tunisian NGOs, and the Minister of the Interior. The work of Tunisia’s National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) – the National Body for the Prevention of Torture, which was established in 2013 as part of Tunisia’s obligations as a party to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture – continued to be hampered by a lack of co-operation from the Ministry of the Interior and inadequate financial support from the government. In April, police at Tunis Carthage International Airport denied members of the NPM access to monitor the handover of a “terrorism” suspect deported from Germany. In April 2016, the UN committee against torture welcomed constitutional and legislative progress in the fight against torture. However, it is noted that there is a persistence of torture in police custody and there are consistent reports of the lack of due diligence exercised by judges and judicial police during investigations into torture or ill-treatment. FREEDOM OF SPEECH 5 According to Amnesty International (2018) post-revolutionary press laws are considerably more liberal than the legislation they replaced. It is no longer a crime to defame or offend public officials or institutions; however, defamation, in general, remains a crime, although one that is not punishable by imprisonment. In 2011, the transitional authorities liberalized the press code and law pertaining to the criminal penalties these laws impose on speech offenses. However, the penal code still contains articles that impose prison terms as punishment for speech offenses. Defamation of recognized religions also remains a crime, so is “distributing false information”, a charge on which the pre-revolutionary government has charged to court dissidents and human rights activists. This charge was used by the post-revolutionary government on May 29, 2012, to detain police official Samir Feriani, who had accused high-ranking government officials in the death of protesters during the revolution. The new government has also failed in some cases to protect some people from exercising their freedom of speech. On June 29, 2012, when dozens of Muslims charged into a screening in Tunis of a movie about atheism, police failed to respond. In October 2012, a prosecutor announced plans to investigate a complaint against Nessma TV for broadcasting a film that Muslims considered offensive. Although persons who vandalized and attempted to set fire to the home of Nessma TV co-owner NebilKaraoui were arrested, they were “detained only briefly and not charged,” whereas Karaoui and two Nessma TV employees are still awaiting trial on charges of “undermining sacred values. In December 2012, Human Rights Watch called on Tunisia’s justice minister to “ensure the immediate release of Sami Fehri, the director of the privately owned Attounissia TV channel,” who remained in prison after Tunisia's highest court, the Court of Cassation, had ordered his 6 immediate release on November 28. Although Fehri had been charged with embezzlement, Fehri claimed that the real reason for his arrest was his broadcasting of a satirical show about leading Tunisian politicians. Academic freedom, which was seriously limited before the revolution, has been significantly expanded (Amnesty International 2018). ETHNIC MINORITIES AND GROUPS IN TUNISIA Tunisia has a highly homogeneous population of almost entirely Arab and Berber descent (98%). The small European population of about 1% consists mostly of French and Italian. Tunisian Jews and other groups make up the remaining 1% of the populace. Arabic is the official language and one language used in commerce. French is taught to all school children and is also commonly used in commerce and administration. A small number of people speaks Berber. Islam is the state religion and nearly all Tunisians are Sunni Muslims. A small number are of the mystical Sufi branch. The Christian community which contains only about 20,000 people is made up of primarily Roman Catholics, Russian Orthodox, French Reform, Anglican, Greek Orthodox and a small number of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Load more