“Days and years dragged on heavily and bleakly. Life was unbearably harsh as I awaited death with each passing dawn.  It was so agonizing to imagine how my head would be cut off or my body be electrocuted,” Fayza remembered about waiting for her death sentence for thirteen years.

 “Days and years dragged on heavily and bleakly. Life was unbearably harsh as I awaited death with each passing dawn.  It was so agonizing to imagine how my head would be cut off or my body be electrocuted,” Fayza remembered about waiting for her death sentence for thirteen years.

Fayza was sentenced to death in 2000 after being charged with premeditated murder of two young men who allegedly raped her. “The voice of the judge pronouncing the death sentence was deafeningly loud. Every time I recall those words, a feeling of frustration and pain seizes me.”

The day my life changed

It was the end of January 1999 and Fayza was 24 years old. She had just arrived in the capital from Tahla in Kasserine province, one of the country’s poorest regions, in search of a job.

Along her journey from the center of the capital to the textile factories in Alahwaz, she met a young man who offered her a lift in his car. He promised to help Fayza get a job. “He was handsome and jovial,” Fayza recalled.

She accompanied him to a country house near the capital where she was promised to meet a friend of his, a factory owner. When she arrived, she realized she had been trapped.

“They raped me savagely and beat me. At that time, I remembered all the past incidents in my life; the old man who molested me and tried to rape me when I was a little girl and the harsh treatment by my brothers. I frantically attacked both men with a knife.”

The price for self defense

 “I knew my life would be gone forever,” she remembered about the death sentence. “I bid farewell to my friends, my family and brothers whom I would never see again. I would no longer dream of wearing the white dress about which I often dreamed during my adolescence.”

Soon Fayza associated everything around her with death. Even the disappearance of another prisoner for some time would cause her a feeling of bitterness and unhappiness. “They put a red tape at the nearby cell after which time our prison mate was never seen again. I saw them take her away early in the morning and I never saw her again,” she said.

 “I would wake up the moment I heard a sound nearby. I heard the footsteps of prison guards as though they were coming towards me. I breathed a sigh of relief when they passed by.  One day, I went to the prison warden and asked him to expedite my death sentence because I was fed up with waiting. I was sick of those moments, my death was inevitable and it was of no use to wait longer and experience more agony.”

My Turn

“One day I saw a man painting a red line on the lower part of the door of my cell. I cried and I told my cell-mate they would kill us one after the other. I felt they have received orders to carry out the death sentence. After some terrifying moments, I had a strange feeling of relief and comfort and said to myself ‘my suffering will end at last’,” she said.

 “In answer to my request to expedite my death sentence, the prison warden told me that under the present regulations, the death sentence had not been enforced on Tunisian women and that our country has not carried out any executions for many years. Therefore, I was destined to stay in prison for the rest of my life without getting executed.”

Sleepless nights

Fayza could not sleep without taking sedative drugs. “I turned into a nervous woman  who gets irritated for the most trivial reasons. Therefore, I was sent for treatment at ‘Razi Hospital’ specialized in neurological and psychiatric disorders,” she said.

Years passed by during which Fayza grew more desperate. Time meant nothing for her. She tried to get adjusted to realities, and began to convince herself of succumbing to fate.

A revolution celebrated in captivity

January 14, 2011 carried the momentous news Fayza was waiting for. Women prisoners followed the events taking place outside the prison walls. They heard the news of the revolution, the collapse of the regime and the formation of a new government followed by the news of another government. News came about holding elections in which former prisoners, who were previously sentenced to death, assumed power.

“Women prisoners received the news with extreme joy and hope. For me, the news about the revolution was a mixture of astonishment and happiness,” Fayza said.

“Hope had soon found a way into my soul. That feeling of hope crept into other prisoners’ minds like a contagion. Hearing the news about electing Moncef Marzouki, a former jurist, president, made them dance and cheer with utmost joy and happiness”.

 “Our hope came true as it was not long when the new president decided to change the death sentences previously issued to life imprisonment. Joy and singing resonated through the prison cells.” 

Repealing the death penalty

Fayza’s punishment was commuted from death to life imprisonment and was further reduced to a sentence of 30 years. She has already served 13 years. “Unexpectedly, time was of substance and future meant something to me.” 

Fayza may now count the years left until she can see the outside world. Like the other prisoners who were sentenced to death, she was banned from family visits. It has been a long time since Fayza tasted her mother’s food as food baskets were also forbidden.

As much as the visiting times were joyous for others, they were bleak and frustrating to Fayza because they made her feel all the more eager to be amongst her family especially since her father died during her imprisonment. “We were forgotten and abandoned before, but now, thanks to the revolution, we are allowed to see our family and inquire about the conditions of the village and the latest news about our families,” she said.

“I still have enough time in jail to prepare and train myself for living the years ahead after spending all those past years preparing myself for the death that never came.”