The spotlight is set upon the opening of the first hearing in the trial involving those accused of plotting to undermine national security. The trial began on March 4, following two years of investigations. Authorities have imposed a media blackout on the case. The investigative judge who issued detention warrants for those implicated in the affair fled the country, before himself becoming the object of an international arrest warrant.
Despite the severity of accusations against the political figures in question and the fact that the case continues to make headlines, the regime decided to hold the first hearing via video-conference—in other words, behind closed doors, and without the accused persons present. The decision is a clear response to the demands of defense committees, prisoners’ families, and all who raised their voices to call for a public trial, broadcasted live on public television. For the government, this would enable public opinion—far from any authority—to know the truth about this case which marks a dangerous shift in the regime’s perception of its opponents and how it treats them.
Tunisia: A Nation Under Moral Policing?
31/12/2024
Today, many are the cases in which citizens, politicians, journalists and advocates for migrant rights are accused, tried and imprisoned. The lawyers working in their defense are unanimous in signaling the absence of the foundations of a fair trial. However, this has not prevented the opposition, as well as actors from civil society and human rights organizations from continuing to protest for the release of prisoners and concrete measures guaranteeing the conditions of a fair trial. The government for its part remains confined within its monologue extolling the judicial system’s “total” independence, and simply denying the existence of political trials and prisoners of conscience.
A trial held remotely and media blackout
The defense lawyers of the political prisoners accused of a plot against national security rejected a decision by Tunis’ Court of First Instance to hold hearings for the fifth chamber (terrorism) during the month of March in accordance with procedures for remote trials. This includes the case in question. In a statement, the defense characterized the decision as “arbitrary,” considering it “the prolongation of a series of illegal and absurd decisions, including the ban on all media coverage of the case.” The defense further noted that the decision constitutes a restriction of guarantees granted not only to the accused but also to lawyers, while highlighting the absence of a real will to ensure a climate conducive to revealing the truth, which they demand be “exposed” by judicial authorities.
The Court’s decision for a remote hearing several days before the trial opened heightened suspicions expressed by the defense team, as well as different actors from civil society and the political sphere, that the trial’s “secret hearings” will not allow for the truth to be revealed in this case. They argue that these hearings do not constitute the appropriate context in which to examine evidence, interrogate witnesses and expose the details of the case in a factual way, far from opacity and generalizations.
The basis of the Court’s decision is article 141 bis concerning procedures for remote rulings. This article was integrated into the Code of Criminal Procedure in April 2020 as a governmental decree under Elyes Fakhfakh, in compliance with the derogation granted to the prime minister for promulgating laws in the context of combatting the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although permission from the accused is required for a remote ruling, the same article also grants the court the right to apply this principle without his or her consent in the case of “imminent danger” or to prevent the spread of a contagious disease. Here it is clear that the Court adopted its own interpretation of the expression “imminent danger” without any justification, using a sweeping generalization (“on account of the existence of real danger”) which it applies to all pending criminal cases within the fifth chamber. However, the same article stipulates that recourse to remote rulings must be justified. And here is the crux of the issue: what are we to expect from a regime which issues a hasty judicial decision to organize a remote hearing in the context of the biggest political trial in years? Introduced in the form of a governmental decree for a two-month period during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Court’s decision provides no explanation for “danger” evoked. What is more, an earlier decision to ban media coverage of the trial has maintained a climate of confusion and uncertainty around a case which has been presented as highly political.
Tunisia’s modern history bears witness to many trials that were significantly and clearly more problematic than the current “plot against national security” case. The most recent of these: the terrorist attacks in the region of Slimane, whose trials were public and widely covered by local and international press. Other cases also concerned threats to national security, notably those involving hundreds of Ennahdha movement activists who were accused between 1981 and 1992 and had the right to public hearings. Local and international press provided transcripts of the proceedings, including lawyers’ defense speeches, declarations made by the accused and the public prosecutor’s indictment. The same principle was applied to all political cases and those involving prisoners of conscience under the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes, such as the attempted coup d’état in the early 1960’s, the “Perspectives” case involving leftist activists, the 1978 syndicalists’ trial, and the case involving former minister Ahmed Ben Saleh, accused of high treason. All of these cases were tried publicly. The entirety of some transcripts were translated into French, making them accessible to the international press, such as the “Barraket Essahel” case. The archives of certain newspapers such as Assabah, as well as the National Archives, preserve the details of these trials and many others for the sake of history.
That these trials were open to the public does not mean that they were fair or that the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes respected the law and legal procedures. On the contrary, the majority of these cases were a veneer for the settling of scores, as has been documented by historians, researchers and even certain officials of the former regimes. Nevertheless, it seemed indelicate to those in power to treat cases of a political nature and accusations as serious as plotting to undermine national security with such opacity and disregard for citizens’ right to know the truth without manipulation or paternalism.
Political (not common law) trials!
Aside from the current “plot against national security” trial, there are dozens of other cases in which Tunisian women and men face accusations on the basis Decree 54 owing to their opinions, publications on social media, comments expressed in the media or activities in support of migrants. All of these cases are no less political, according to organizations such as the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), since these trials aim to muzzle freedom of opinion and expression and restrict associative and political activities. These cases have furthermore been covered by the local press and followed by national and international NGOs. Indeed, this fact led Tunisia’s Foreign Affairs Minister to issue a public statement last Monday in which he rejected criticism from the High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCDH) which had called on Tunisian authorities to “cease all forms of persecution of political opponents [and] arbitrary detentions […] of dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, activists and politicians.” The Tunisian Foreign Affairs Minister expressed his astonishment at the High Commissioner’s report, affirming that “no non-judicial body intervenes in measures taken by judges in the application of the law,” as per his statement. He further noted that “the trial faced by the accused individuals mentioned in the statement pertains to public law crimes which have no connection to bear with their partisan, political or media-related activities or with their exercising freedom of opinion or expression.”
Ultimately, a controversy between the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Tunisia’s Foreign Affairs Minister had a (direct or indirect) impact upon the internal situation. In recent days, we have seen the release of several political prisoners: Sihem Bensedrine, former president of the Truth and Dignity Commission, former Minister of the Environment Riadh Mouakher, and journalist Mohamed Boughalleb. Some believed that the release of such prisoners could be the start of a new phase marked by a lessening of the government’s repressive tactics. However, the handling of certain cases like the “plot to undermine national security,” decisions to send certain pro-migrant activists to trial before the criminal court, as well as the refusal to release them and the mistreatment of certain prisoners (for example, President of the Destourian Party Abir Moussi and former Ennahdha senior officer Abdelhamid Jlassi whose health has significantly declined), are clear indicators that this is an unlikely scenario. The government’s policy of repression continues to target opponents, and authorities remain determined to pursue the path of political trials.
Authorities’ denial about the existence of prisoners of conscience and its use of disinformation through propagandists protected by impunity cannot hide the reality which national and international NGOs have documented in reports that are accessible to all for consultation or verification. The Minister’s affirmation that all prisoners are implicated in common law cases does not hold up in light of the dozens of individuals imprisoned or sentenced on account of their Facebook publications, statements in the media, caricatures or graffiti. These individuals are so many that it is not possible to cite them all here. But they bear witness to the inanity of the regime’s narrative and serve as clear evidence of Tunisia’s serious regression in terms of human rights and freedoms, above all the freedom of expression and the freedom to practice political and associative activities.
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