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“Kill Them, They Are Sodomites”

Police Violence Against LGBT People in Tunisia

On October 6, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists in Tunisia raised their voices and banners in the street, amid the hundreds of demonstrators who were peacefully protesting a draft law that would drastically limit criminal…
Saif Ayadi, LGBT rights activist at Damj Association, surrounded by protesters on October 6, 2020.
News

Transitional Justice in Tunisia—a Transition to What?

  January 14, the anniversary of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 2011 ouster, is a now a national holiday in Tunisia. It is also a moment to examine how things are going in the country that ignited “the Arab…
The first public hearing held by the Truth and Dignity Commission (TDC), at Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia on November 17, 2016.
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UN Review Should Help Children Caught in ISIS Conflict

Baraa Zayani, a 4-year-old Tunisian boy, has been held for the past two years in a militia-run prison in Libya. In 2016, a bullet tore through his stomach during clashes between armed groups that killed his father, a member of the…
View from hill overlooking Ain Issa displacement camp in Syria, May 2018. © Human Rights Watch
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The Middle East's Women Are Championing Their Own Change

Despite setbacks for women’s rights around the globe in 2017, some of the most exciting reforms and positive momentum emerged from the Middle East and North Africa. Tunisian women have new protections against violence. Migrant domestic workers in…
Demonstration outside Parliament on December 6, 2016, with women in white dresses and wrapped in bandages, calling for the repeal of article 522 of the penal code.
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New Reconciliation Law Threatens Tunisia’s Democracy

On Sept. 13, the Tunisian parliament adopted a law that could threaten its hard-won fledgling democracy. The “administrative reconciliation law” will grant complete impunity to civil servants who were implicated in corruption under former dictator Zine El…
A Tunisian woman holds up a flag during a march to celebrate International Women's Day in Tunis March 8, 2014. © 2014 Reuters
News

Middle East on a Roll to Repeal 'Marry the Rapist' Laws

Rape-marriage exoneration laws are relics of the colonial past. It's time to leave them there.

In recent weeks, the Tunisian, Jordanian, and Lebanese parliaments have repealed provisions in their penal codes that allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims. Provisions like these, largely colonial-era relics, remain on the books…
Demonstration outside Parliament on December 6, 2016, with women in white dresses and wrapped in bandages, calling for the repeal of article 522 of the penal code.
News

The Law That Could be the Final Blow to Tunisia’s Transition

Six years after the fall of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, transitional justice is going through hard times. Impunity for human rights violations persists. The most senior officials responsible for the repression have escaped…
Tunisians demonstrate against a bill that would protect from prosecution those accused of corruption, on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, Tunisia April 29, 2017. The sign reads "No. We will not forgive."
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‘Consent’ or No, Anal Testing in Tunisia Must Go

At an evaluation of Tunisia’s human rights record before the United Nations Human Rights Council on May 2, the government was taken to task for criminalizing consensual sex between adults of the same sex and forcing people accused of homosexuality to…
Poster by Shams, a Tunisian activist group, condemning the use of forced anal exams.
News

Missing Journalists: Tunisia’s Arab Spring Meets Libya’s

Sofiane Chourabi, a Tunisian journalist emblematic of Tunisia’s struggle for free speech and media independence, and his cameraman, Nadhir Ktari, have been missing since an unidentified group reportedly seized them in Libya last September. On…
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Tunisia - Three Graves, One Question: "Justice, When?"

In Kasserine's graveyard two new tombstones have been added to the roll of people who have died a violent death in this Tunisian city close to the Algerian border. Ahlem Dalhoumi, 22, and her cousin Ons Dalhoumi, 18, were both killed with bullets to the…
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In the Joint for a Joint: Tunisia’s Repressive Drugs Law

Thousands of young Tunisians have been thrown into jail for minor drug use charges under Law 52, jeopardizing their lives and futures On 12 May, Azyz Amami, a Tunisian blogger and human rights defender, was arrested for marijuana possession…
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Tunisia: The human cost of the drug law

The arrest of the blogger and human rights defender, Azyz Amam, along with the photographer Sabri Ben Mlouka, on the night of May 12, 2014, in Goulette on the northern outskirts of Tunis, on allegations of possession of cannabis, has provoked indignation…
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The Problem with Tunisia’s New Constitution

Tunisia’s revolution reached a milestone in late January when it passed a new constitution, setting a new course for the country’s future. The National Constituent Assembly has spent nearly two years of hard work on the document, with a month devoted…
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To Build Trust, Tunisia’s Security Forces Must Be Reformed

Tunisia since the revolution has been a place of recurring violence, from the assassinations of the leftist politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi to the killing of eight soldiers on Chaambi Mountain. The violence has prompted a political crisis, as…
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Tunisia: Political Crisis and Transition Priorities

Tunisians are baffled and anxious in the midst of a series of events that threaten to plunge the country into chaos, including the execution of an armed group of soldiers on July 29 near the Algerian border. The assassination of the opposition parliament…
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Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 17 June

Turkey, G8 & Syria, Tunisia, net freedom

Police in Turkey break up protests with excessive force and target a hospital. The G8 starts in Northern Ireland, but diplomats' eyes are on Syria. The United Nations debates the issue of children in armed conflict. Tunisia jails rapper for a song,…
News

Human Rights and Culture Wars in the New Tunisia

The fate of two very different prisoners in Tunisia -- one Muammar al-Qaddafi's former prime minister, the other an unknown and irreverent cartoonist -- hints at the future course of this country that initiated the Arab Spring. The public outcry over the…