Tunisia, cases of torture and ill-treatment by the police increase, which remains unpunished: migrants and LGBT people among the most common victims

ROME – In the last eighteen months, 112 cases of torture and ill-treatment have been recorded in Tunisia, of which 53 in 2023 alone, reports SANAD, a program ofWorld Organization Against Torture (OMCT). This project, launched in 2013, aims to rehabilitate victims of torture and ill-treatment by providing them, inter alia, with legal assistance.

Direct and indirect victims. 89 percent of the direct victims, or those who have suffered torture and ill-treatment themselves, are men. 60 percent of them are aged between 18 and 35, writes the Tunisian magazine Nawaat. Indirect victims, on the other hand, are usually family members, especially women, who suffer, as a consequence, the effects of abuse. The geographical distribution of the victims shows that the Tunis area has the highest rate of cases of torture and ill-treatment: 27 percent. The North West follows with 24 percent and Sfax with 18 percent.

Institutionalized torture. There has been an increase in this kind of abuse for some years. Today torture seems institutionalized, or rather piloted by the top of the state, even if it is practiced in a less systematic way than in Ben Ali’s time. The number of victims of these human rights violations has not only increased, but their profiles have also diversified. Intentional violence is exercised in particular against individuals registered due to alleged behavior dangerous to public order. These people are the first to be targeted by the police, followed by migrants and LGBT groups.

Sub-Saharan migrants. With his speech in February, the President of the Republic Kaïs Saïed exposed sub-Saharan migrants to the public pillory. They have since experienced an unparalleled wave of law enforcement repression. Many of them were recently removed from the city of Sfax and taken to the Libyan border as part of a security campaign. In this context, the OMCT denounced to the United Nations the torture inflicted on a migrant of sub-Saharan origin. This man, according to the reconstruction made by the Organization, was transferred to various security posts in Ben Guardane, where he was beaten with an iron bar and then deported to the Libyan border. His fate recalls that of the 700 migrants beaten by security forces and deliberately deprived of food and water during their arrest as part of the same security campaign.

The forms of ill-treatment and torture. The OMCT has also identified numerous cases of “ordinary” violence. These are attacks on citizens during a trivial discussion with a police officer, the national guard or a prison officer. These fights often occur when the officer is not performing his duties. Yet, subsequently, the victims find themselves prosecuted for contempt of a public official. Violence often begins with the harassment and can escalate to the victim’s death. These are behaviors bordering on bullying, because they manifest themselves through the imposition of arbitrary measures. Thus, 49 percent of the victims identified by the SANAD report were subjected to measures restricting freedom without just cause. The improper use of insulting a public official, preventive detention and the denial of the right to legal assistance are also forms of violence.

Impunity. The OMCT has documented several cases of arbitrary police raids, with victims wrongfully arrested and beaten unconscious. Traces of this kind of violence have been observed particularly in some cases of suspicious deaths, he writes Nawaat, an independent collective blog co-founded by a group of Tunisian activists in 2004. Tortures also include unwanted sexual contacts and threats of rape. This aptitude for police violence is nourished by absolute impunity, both due to the difficulty that the victims have in denouncing what happens to them, and due to the awareness of how practically impossible it is to obtain justice. Most of the people supported by OMCT services are prosecuted for contempt, the SANAD report reads. But the investigation for contempt of a public official is swift and immediately results in a conviction. Conversely, police abuse proceeds very slowly, so while the victim is in pre-trial detention because he has already been convicted, the officer accused of torture – a more serious crime than contempt – remains free and continues to perform his duties.