News about an emergency security meeting was leaked by the Interior Ministry early this month, with Interior Minister Lutfi Ben Jeddo and Reda Safar, the minister in charge of security, in attendance.
According to leaks, the aim of the session was to put an end to the meddling of security unions, which have aggravated security field work and offended security leaders.
News about an emergency security meeting was leaked by the Interior Ministry early this month, with Interior Minister Lutfi Ben Jeddo and Reda Safar, the minister in charge of security, in attendance.
According to leaks, the aim of the session was to put an end to the meddling of security unions, which have aggravated security field work and offended security leaders.
The upshot of the meeting: security unions, which allegedly interfere in the public policy of the ministry and reveal very dangerous security information were to blame for much of the instability in the security sector.
Punishment for interfering
An agreement was signed, stipulating that should any member of a security union reveal secret and confidential information to the public, he/she shall be punished and prosecuted by the judiciary.
The Interior Ministry refused to give any clarification about these measures and the unions have been either ignoring or denying these developments. Moreover, the unions warned the Interior Ministry about the consequences of any measure that would suppress the work of the security unions in the country.
“We apologized to the people.“
In a statement to Correspondents, Lasaad al-Yahmadi, a member of the National Union for the Internal Security Forces, said: “There is a scheme being prepared by senior security leaders of the Interior Ministry to suppress the security trade unions and to eradicate them because we revealed the suspicious files of the ministry and we made public the size of partisan and political infiltration of the security apparatuses.”
“We apologized to the Tunisian people for the long years of dictatorship and tyranny. We apologized because we were a whip in the hands of the tyrant. It was a whip we used to hurt ourselves and the Tunisian people. In order not to continue to be this whip with any political system that rules the country, we demanded the formation of a trade union to protect our rights and to immunize us against the tyranny of power. We demanded the issuance of laws so that we became a security apparatus that serves the people, the values of the republic, and citizenship, instead of serving the Sultan at the expense of the flock. “
The beginning of security trade unions
A few months after the revolution, on May 25, 2011, Beji Caid Essebsi, the prime minister at the time, issued a government decree allowing the establishment of security trade unions. In its eleventh chapter, the decree said: “the security personnel shall have the right to practice trade unionism” but the same chapter banned them from practicing strikes or disrupting the work of the official security apparatus.
Al-Yahmadi admits there were mistakes committed by randomly created unions and called them “experts in chaos who claim that they are security unions but in reality are not.”
He accuses the troika government, and Ali Laarayedh, the former interior minister who then became prime minister, of tarnishing the image of security unions. “It was for this reason that the government kept silent about these intruding unions and allowed them to become the plague that has swept though the body of the security apparatuses.”
The Internal Security Forces’ Union was the first to obtain a license to practice trade union activities. According to al-Yahmadi, the union is composed of 30,000 members from the police, prison guards and civil guards out of a total of 80,000 security personnel in Tunisia.
A parallel security system?
Tensed relations between security leaders and union leaders surfaced after the terrorist attack on the house of the Interior Minister Lutfi Ben Jeddo on May 27, 2014.
This attack resulted in the death of four security men and leaders from security unions criticized the performance of the ministry, accusing it of negligence in protecting security agents.
The leaders of these unions went on to reveal the most sensitive details of the security work to the press.
Naziha Rejiba, nicknamed Um Ziad—a writer, journalist and human rights activist— claims the security unions want to create a state within the state. “They have become gangs. Their members did not demand the improvement of their conditions and did not create security for the people. They are politicized and they became part of the political conflict in the country.”
Jalbar Nakkash, a leftist activist and well-known writer, accused the security unions of “representing the counter revolution. They are part of the old regime trying to restore the old system,” he said.
Wreckless statements
The most serious security development took place on October 18, 2013 when security union leaders raised the “Degage” (Leave) slogan to demand the removal of thee presidents in the Aweyna barrack during the memorial service of two National Guard members who had been killed in a terrorist attack in Beja Province.
In response, the Interior Ministry issued a statement: “Responsible union activity respects the security discipline rules and protects the financial and social rights of all security men, on the condition that it does not become a means to disrupt or confuse the work of the government and threaten the unity and discipline of the security establishment.”
Other trade union stunts continued over subsequent months— like threatening the current Prime Minister Mehdi Jumaa and Interior Minister Lutfi Ben Jeddo of “accelerated steps” if investigations in the attack of Imad Dogej—leader of the Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution (LPR)—on security agents were not expediated.
Going after the government
On May 30, 2014, Ulfat Layari, a member of the internal security forces’ union, gave a statement to al-Jazeera satellite station in which she demanded giving the security institution unrestricted powers to fight terrorism without hiding behind human rights that have become meaningless. “These rights have no meaning when the state and the national security are threatened,” she said.
Habib al-Rashidi, Secretary General of the Republican Security Union, has recently accused the Congress for the Republic Party, of supporting “extremist” religious associations from the state treasury.
Walid Razzouq, a security union activist, accused the Ennahda movement more than once of standing behind the political assassinations in Tunisia, with the complicity of the Interior Ministry.
These statements are considered a clear violation of the law governing the work of the security trade unions. Chapter 9 of Law No. 70 of 1982, dated August 6, 1982, revised in May 25, 2011, bans any statements to the media by representatives of trade unions outside the framework of the professional problems of the sector related to their union work.
Security unions demand the right to vote
Security trade unions not only criticize politicians and assess their performance, they also demand the right to vote similarly to their fellow colleagues in Algeria and Morocco. Lasaad al-Yahmadi supports this demand and it is also supported by the Internal Security Forces’ Union based on Chapter 21 of the new Constitution of Tunisia, which states that “Male and female citizens have equal rights and duties, and they are equal before the law without distinction.”
Chapter 19 of the Constitution however, states that “the national security is the republic’s security. The troops of the republic are tasked with maintaining security, public order and the protection of individuals, institutions, and property and law enforcement, in an atmosphere of respect for freedoms and within the framework of strict neutrality.”
Instead of a commitment to neutrality enshrined in the Constitution, security unions continue to attack political parties and politicians and they demand the resignation of some security leaders. They also continue to speak about terrorism, corruption in the security apparatuses and “buying and selling” operations within the security services.
It is a very complicated scene, said Walid Zarrouk, the secretary-general of the Republican Security Union. “The scene of the security unions is very complicated not because of the administration and officials, but because of the presence of union members who betrayed the people who liberated them from a regime that was using them as slaves.”
“It is similar to a gun with 10 bullets,” said Zarrouk. “Nine should be fired to kill those who betrayed the country and the remaining one to kill external enemies.”
