Freedom of expression under attack in Tunisia

This story originally appeared on The Media Line.

A new Tunisian security bill could make criticizing the Tunisian police or security forces a crime, and should be amended, says a group of human rights organizations. It also allows security forces to use deadly force to protect property, not only lives. The human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International urge the Tunisian parliament to drop these problematic provisions from the bill.

The government sent the bill to parliament in April following the March attack by gunmen that killed 23 people at the Bardo museum and a series of attacks by gunmen on members of the security forces. At least 75 members of the Tunisian army and police have been killed since the uprising that ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, and almost 200 wounded.

“The government has approved a draft bill that in the name of protecting the security forces inflicts severe setbacks on civil liberties in Tunisia,” Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch told The Media Line. “If the bill is passed it would stifle criticism and whistleblowing, and have a chilling effect on anyone who criticizes the security forces by putting them at risk of prosecution.”

Tunisia, which is where the Arab spring began more than four years ago, is in many ways a success, say analysts who study the region. Tunisia adopted a constitution in 2014, and later that year held both parliamentary and presidential elections – Tunisia’s first democratic elections since 1956. Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi, a former foreign minister and interim Prime Minister in 2011 and founder of the secular Nidaa Tounes party, was elected.

Tunisia has moved slowly toward democracy, and this bill could threaten that movement.

“The public is more ready to accept this kind of legislation thinking it will protect them from additional attacks,” Maha Yahya, an expert on Tunisia at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told The Media Line. “But it is critical for Tunisians to understand that clamping down on civil liberties is far more threatening to Tunisia’s transition to democracy than a terrorist attack. All they will do is push people to the shadows and fringes where they will look for other ways to express their discontent.

She compared the situation to Egypt, where a similar drive to democracy, and an election that brought Muslim Brotherhood head Mohamed Morsi to power in 2013, has devolved into an anti-democratic rule by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood and arrested hundreds of its supporters.

“It’s paramount for Tunisia’s political leaders not to sacrifice Tunisia’s fragile political transition on the altar of security.”

Tightening security policies is common after terrorist attacks, as the US did after 9/11. But the current bill before the Tunisian parliament would allow courts to impose long prison sentences on anyone who reveals “national security secrets.” It also allows no defense from prosecution for whistleblowers or journalists who claim to have acted in the public interest.

The bill would make the “denigration” of police or security forces a crime, and provides for up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for those who publish a “national security secret”, which it defines broadly.

“The reaction to this draft bill in both human rights groups and civil society was unanimous in their disappointment,” Goldstein of Human Rights Watch said. “That’s why we want it revised.”