To access the report:Last days of freedom
Intersection Association for Rights and Freedoms released a monitoring report entitled” Last Days of Freedom.”
The report focuses on the exposure to human rights violations throughout 2023. This is a period in which Tunisia witnessed a series of violations of several rights, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The targets were Tunisians from different backgrounds: politicians, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, etc.
Due to the free exercise of their rights guaranteed by the Constitution and international conventions, they found themselves the subject of judicial pursuit and security prosecutions aiming at their imprisonment. For an entire year, Intersection Association monitored 99 violations, most of which were in February, during which the number of violations had nearly reached 47. Most of them were arbitrary arrests, referrals for investigation, and trials under various laws from the Penal Code or Communications Code, in addition to referrals under Decree No.54, which has been used as a sword over the necks of everyone who criticized the government’s actions. 19 cases under Article 24 of the same decree were documented.
The report highlights human rights violations experienced by Tunisia throughout the year 2023, which targeted a large number of Tunisians from various backgrounds and fields of activity, especially those voices critical and opposed to the current ruling regime. Most violations were related to freedom of opinion and various relevant rights, such as the right to freedom of media and the press and the right to freedom of political union activity.
Furthermore, arbitrary detentions among politicians were detected, especially of those involved in the conspiracy case, where 8 politicians, 2 of whom were released, while the rest remain imprisoned in the Civil Prison of Mornaguia. The report also addresses the arrests, violence, and abuse within detention centers, as well as the violation of the right to a fair trial through the breach of legal procedures and infringement of the detainees’ rights.
In addition, the authorities have launched a systematic campaign against the Tunisian press with the aim of subjugating it while introducing a form of prior censorship and suppression through the prosecution of journalists based on their journalistic work with penal provisions outside the scope of Decree No. 115 regulating journalistic work. Several cases were monitored against 8 journalists, in addition to the unfair verdict against journalist Khalifa Guesmi, as well as the pursuit of activists and citizens, resulting in a high rate of opinion cases in 2023 compared to previous years.
This leads to the conclusion that the Tunisian state uses arbitrary methods to impose its dominance over different free and independent fields by using its various judicial and executive bodies. This is carried out with the aim of restricting freedom of expression and undermining the set of rights and gains, which have been and still are one of the most significant achievements of the Tunisian revolution in 2011 and have formed the most important components of Tunisian democracy throughout the past period.
The report includes a chronological narrative of the monitored violations, from January 2023 until the end of December 2023. It specifically tackles human rights violations in Tunisia, especially the state’s violation of the right to freedom of expression. It also discusses to what extent the Tunisian state has directed its compass to limit these rights by restricting through various means, including, in particular, arbitrary trials and shedding malicious charges against citizens, in addition to imprisoning them for long periods. This aims to instill terror among them and deter them from delving into political and human rights issues and all matters of public concern.
The report concludes with an analytical section on the violations of freedom of opinion and expression in Tunisia in 2023 and points out the restrictions imposed on the civil, political, and even media spheres. Journalists were among the groups most susceptible to opinion trials and human rights violations. It draws to what extent the Tunisian state directs its compass to undermine and further restrict these rights from diverse aspects, especially arbitrary trials and shedding malicious charges on citizens to deprive them of their freedom on the grounds of acts that are criminalized only by regimes that follow the path of dictatorship.
To access the report:Last days of freedom