Tunisia Still Blocking Human Rights Monitors from Its Prisons

In Tunisia, there is no independent judiciary to speak of. Torture in Tunisian jails is rampant. And, according to Human Rights Watch, "Trial judges convict defendants solely or predominantly on the basis of coerced confessions, or on the testimony of witnesses whom the defendant does not have the opportunity to confront in court."

The Red Cross visits the country's prisons, but Tunisia relies on the utter confidentiality of Red Cross reports, which it can then ignore. "Detainees," Human Rights Watch reported in 2007, "report a range of methods of torture and ill-treatment during police interrogation. Most common, according to human rights lawyers and organizations, are sleep deprivation; threats to rape the detainee or women family members; eatings, especially on the soles of the feet (falaka), using fists, kicks, and sometimes clubs or electric cables; and tying and uspending detainees from the ceiling or from a rod in the “roast chicken” (poulet rôti ) position."

You'd think Tunisia was part of the ex-Bush administration's "black sites" archipelago. (Tunisia was, in fact, suspected to be one of the countries that lent its grounds to black site operations.)

As far back as 2005, the Tunisian government had agreed to open its prisons for inspection--only to junk up the promise with reams of conditions.

In a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and Member States of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch wrote on April 15 that Tunisian authorities

have so far held to terms that would make it impossible for us to attain a full and accurate picture of prison conditions. Notably, they have insisted that the delegation reach the prisoners it interviews via a "sampling" methodology, that is, by entering a prison and inviting members of the inmate population to step forward to be interviewed by the delegation. Human Rights Watch has accepted this form of sampling as one component of its methodology, but also insists on seeing specific prisoners selected on the basis of its ongoing external monitoring of prison conditions, provided those prisoners agree to speak with us.

This two-pronged methodology would ensure that the delegation can access a broad range of prisoners, check the information provided by prisoners it reached through the sampling method against the information provided by pre-selected prisoners, investigate cases where there have been allegations of abuse, and safeguard against the possible relocation by the administration of specific inmates to keep them away from the delegation.

Tunisian authorities, however, appear quite content to lawyer the issue to death. After all, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment has been requesting to visit Tunisia's prisons since 1998. Still waiting.

See Also:

• Human Rights Watch's full letter to UNHRC on Tunisian prisons
• Tunisia: Country Profile