Human rights report traces Tunisia's bloody past, demands plan for justice
Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission has given the government one year to develop an action plan to create a truly just and free democratic state.
After six years of investigations into human rights violations dating back to 1955, Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission (known by its French initials, IVD) finally published its report March 26, marking the first real step forward in Tunisia’s process of transitional justice. The responsibility now falls on the government to ensure these atrocities are never repeated. However, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has so far refused to acknowledge receipt of the report.
Human Rights Minister Fadhel Mahfoudh, who is close to Chahed, told Al-Monitor that Chahed is simply “waiting for the complete delivery of the report as well as all related files and archives.”
The report, at some 2,000 pages long, is the result of investigations into the suffering of 33,154 victims during the period from 1955 — the final years of the French colonial period — through the presidencies of Habib Bourghiba (1956-1987) and Zine Abedine Ben Ali (1987-2011) until 2013, when the transitional justice law was passed under the Moncef Marzouki presidency.
The 2013 law outlines a plan to investigate the historic crimes and human rights violations. Its long-term goals are to create institutions that prevent the repetition of such violations and to “preserve the national memory.” The IVD was set up in 2014 as a committee to investigate crimes by the state and its institutions against the people of Tunisia and bring the perpetrators to trial. Since its inception, the IVD has initiated 173 court cases, 30 of which are currently in process in specialized courts around the country.
