Human Rights Watch 4

The Forest Behind the Trees: Exploring Family Violence

A notable achievement since Tunisia’s adoption of law-58 on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 2017 is that it has broken the taboo on speaking about domestic violence. Yet, while spousal violence has received significant attention, it can be seen as representing the trees hiding the forest: family violence, and its multifaceted implications for women in their adulthood, remains a kind of family secret. It is time to shed light on this dimension of violence against women.

Torture in Tunisia: Abdelmajid Jdey, Another Death in Police Custody

Abdelmajid Jdey was being held in preventative detention Sidi Bouzid when, on 13 May, the Ministry of the Interior announced his death; according to the statement, Jdey hung himself in his cell. In the weeks that have followed, civil society activists and organizations including Human Rights Watch and the Tunisian Organization Against Torture (OCTT) have contested the Ministry’s announcement. Notably, the victim had filed a complaint of torture to OCTT several days prior to his death.

Counterterrorism Law: looking beyond laxity vs. despotism, security vs. human rights

Amidst the distilled information and tones of alarmism and pessimism that stifle quality discussions on terrorism in mainstream media, one finds the insight and information provided by members of civil society, activists, government officials active on social media platforms. Such a plurality of perspectives is important for fleshing out and expanding a discussion that is commonly portrayed as a two-sided debate between human rights advocates who demand the protection of civil liberties at the expense of effective security measures, and conservative political figures whose rhetoric of national security and unity in the face of terrorism is construed to harbor power and by extension repress fundamental rights.