Torture is still being practiced in Tunisian prisons and impunity continues, according to reports by human rights organizations. The Tunisian government has not denied these reports. 

“I was shocked to see him in such a poor state of health,” said Najya al-Jalayli, describing the conditions of her son Fathi during her last visit to him in al-Mornaguia Prison on September 17, 2013. “He was not able to speak because they smashed his jaws …I could not bear to see him like that.”

Torture is still being practiced in Tunisian prisons and impunity continues, according to reports by human rights organizations. The Tunisian government has not denied these reports. 

“I was shocked to see him in such a poor state of health,” said Najya al-Jalayli, describing the conditions of her son Fathi during her last visit to him in al-Mornaguia Prison on September 17, 2013. “He was not able to speak because they smashed his jaws …I could not bear to see him like that.”

Al-Jalayli claimed that a guard said her son had been beaten for 12 consecutive hours. “The guard told us he cannot endure anymore,” al-Jalayli said.

Forty-year-old Fathi al-Jalayli, was detained in April 2011 on charges of burning one of the security centers. He is now languishing in al-Mornaguia prison and allegedly being tortured continuously.

They thought that, but in reality… 

Fathi’s case, among many others, has refuted the perception that torture and human rights violations in Tunisia came to an end after the January 14, 2011 revolution that toppled Ben Ali’s regime; which, embraced these methods in its state institutions and adopted them as a systematic policy against all of those who had enough courage to oppose it. Torture is still being practiced as acknowledged by the Minister of Human Rights in the Constituent Assembly and in the media. Yet he said torture happened on a case by case basis and was not a government policy. “The state will spare no effort to resist torture and to bring those responsible for it to the court of law to receive the punishment they deserve,” said Minister Samir Dilou.

Chakib Darwish, the media officer of the Ministry of Human Rights and Transitional Justice, said he did not deny the presence of torture in Tunisian prisons and detention centers. “But I cannot at all accept accusations that the situation today is similar to that which prevailed before the revolution, especially because the government does not hesitate to prosecute anyone who is still practicing torture.”

Continuous torture 

Darwish cited that the state did not hesitate to arrest the officers who were responsible for the death of Abdul Raouf al-Khamasi, who died after being brutally beaten at the police station in the capital city last year and it brought all involved to justice.

Monther El-Charni, Secretary General of the Tunisian Association against Torture, said that he does not agree with Darwish’s claim that the state is taking decisive measures against those who are proved to have practiced torture. “None of the cases that we have filed reached the court,” El-Charni said. “Impunity for those who are engaged in torture is still continuing. We did not notice any decisiveness in dealing with cases of torture or suspicious death inside prisons or detention and police centers as well as the slow pace of investigation and research”.

He added that his organization receives many complaints from the citizens’ families about their children languishing in the prisons or in the police stations as well as information about cases of torture leading to death.

Not a deliberate policy

Monther El-Charni admitted that things have significantly improved compared to the era of the former regime. “We cannot say that the current or previous governments embrace torture as a systematic policy, however, torture is still being practiced at the level of the lower executive apparatuses.” 

From the standpoint of the human rights activist, there are multiple and uncountable reasons behind torture. But, in most cases torture is used to extract confessions or to punish those who confessed committing the charges against him.

Shukri Hamada, the Spokesman for the Internal Security Forces Association, categorically refuted accusations of torture practices by the police and said that the police and prison officers should not be blamed and there should be a clear definition of torture and what is expected from the security personnel. 

“The claim that torture is practiced in the police and detention centers is not acceptable and whoever has any physical evidence let him go to the court of law.” Hamada added that there is only one officer responsible for 300 prisoners. “How could this officer work under such an equation? He himself is being tortured under such difficult working conditions.” 

We reject violations

One security officer who spoke under conditions of anonymity did not only deny torture accusations said: “Torture is a programmed and planned action. How can we blame a police officer for the unavailability of medicines in the Tunisian prisons, which are hosting a huge number of prisoners to double the size of their capacities,” he said.

The Tunisian law, in chapter 10 of the criminal code, defines torture as “any act that may result in pain of severe physical or mental suffering deliberately inflicted on a person in order to extract from him a confession or to punish him for an act he committed or he is suspected of committing.” 

A commission that is not preventing torture 

The continued use of torture in Tunisia made human rights organizations demand the adoption of necessary measures in order to end human rights violations. The first step taken in this regard was the Constituent Assembly’s approval of the creation of a National Commission for the Prevention of Torture and the second is Tunisia’s accession to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. The third was acknowledging that the statute of limitations on torture crimes shall not be limited to fifteen years as was stipulated before in the Tunisian law. Nevertheless, all this, according to human rights activists, is not enough.

Human Rights Minister Samir Dilou, stressed that the creation of the commission in itself would not end torture, because the role of this commission is a preventive one. It should prevent such violations as much as possible because its members can meet with the prisoners in one-to-one meetings and can meet with any person who has important information. He also said that this commission is in no way a legal “decoration.” 

Monther El-Charni did not seem to be optimistic about the creation of the commission.  According to him, the law of the commission implicitly allows it to hide incidents of torture by giving the head of the prison or detention center the right to stop sudden visits. 

“Chapter 13 of the law of the National Commission to Resist Torture allows the prison’s administration and detention centers to notify the head of the commission who pays a sudden visit to these places in case there is an emergency case such as a disease or protests, which is a reason for cancelling the visit,” El-Charni said. “This stipulation eliminates the surprise factor and this chapter could be used to hide torture crimes and the possibility of investigating them.”