Torture Claims in Tunisia Await Truth Commission
TUNIS
— One of the most notorious forms of torture was the “roast chicken,”
an obscene stress position in which the victim was suspended naked, like
a trussed bird on a spit.
During
months of interrogation that began when he was just 17, Mohamed Hamemi,
now 45 and an athletics trainer, repeatedly endured the excruciating
posture as the government cracked down on an Islamist movement in the
1980s.
“There
are stories I cannot even tell,” he said. “You spend the whole day
naked, with feet cuffed, in the chicken position. When all your body
goes blue, they drop you down, throw water on you, and then yank you up
again.”
Mr.
Hamemi is one of the thousands of Tunisians who have arrived at the
country’s newly formed Truth and Dignity Commission, an ambitious effort
to examine past abuses and answer demands for justice.
Every
day, people like him come, middle-aged men and women with lined faces,
sitting silently, waiting to submit their papers. Some describe being
beaten unconscious, hung upside down, plunged underwater or into buckets
of human waste, electrocuted, raped and sodomized, often while spouses
and others were made to watch.
Before
the revolutions that swept the region more than four years ago, that
kind of torture, though especially cruel, was not uncommon in the Arab
world. For decades, the region’s dictators made sure to crush any
perceived threat to their rule.
What is exceptional about Tunisia,
now a democracy, is that it is daring to examine its past abuses
publicly. There is even talk of televising the public hearings that are
scheduled to begin in June.
Such
a public vetting of past sins has been attempted by other nations at
turning points between dictatorship and democracy, like South Africa and
El Salvador. Though the process can be painful, leaving it undone could
allow old grievances to fester and eventually erupt again.
Though Tunisia’s
effort is intended to unify and heal, it is not universally embraced
here. The commission struggled with the bureaucracy over money and with
the police over access to archives even before opening its doors to the
public in December.
Doubts
are mounting that the commission will achieve its high-minded goals.
The country’s two main political parties seek reconciliation in the
interest of national stability, but seem less interested in justice. And
members of the old regime’s political and business elite have retained
influence in the new democratic order.
“There is resistance from the administration, so we have many challenges,” said Sihem Bensedrine,
the former journalist and human rights activist who leads the
commission. “That is our job, to deconstruct the machine, understand how
it works, and then rebuild and see what not to do.”
Over
the next four to five years, the commission plans to reveal the full
range of human rights violations committed during nearly 60 years of
authoritarian rule in Tunisia, and to hold those who committed the most
egregious crimes accountable.
Its time frame starts in 1955, a year before independence from France, and includes the long rule of two dictators, Presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
It encompasses a mass killing during the independence movement; the
torture and imprisonment of an estimated 30,000 trade unionists,
students, leftists and Islamists by the dictatorship; and the casualties
of the 2011 revolution that began the Arab Spring: 338 dead and 2,147
wounded.
“It
is not about one regime or another,” said Emtyez Bellali, a project
associate at the World Organization Against Torture’s chapter in Tunis,
the capital. “Torture has been the way of governance in this country. We
should fight it because it is in the mentality of everyone.”
While
the nation’s authoritarian leaders were promoting Tunisia as a modern,
secular country of universal education and emancipated women, they were
also running a system of torture and repression, hidden from view, that
broke families and silenced dissent.
The
worst torture chambers were said to be those in the basement of the
Interior Ministry, a gray concrete building at one end of a cafe-lined
central boulevard. Nearby residents would hear the screams of prisoners
at 3 a.m., according to Mounira Ben Kaddour, secretary general of the
Tunisian Women’s Association, which has gathered testimony from more
than 400 women since the revolution.
Outside
prison, the repression continued. Former inmates were expelled from
jobs and colleges, subjected to rigid police control and harassment, and
forced to divorce or go into exile.
Though
the abuses have been reported before, the scale of repression and the
machinery of dictatorship are only now being fully exposed and
understood.
Several
victims interviewed recently sat on the ground to demonstrate the roast
chicken, with one calling on his daughter to bring a scarf and
broomstick.
Arms
were handcuffed around bent legs, they said, and the body was hung from
a metal bar passed under the knees and balanced on two tables. Then the
flogging began.
Mr.
Hamemi was tortured during government crackdowns on Islamists. He and
two cellmates submitted their claims to the truth commission together
and emerged afterward with their shoulders hunched against the sharp
wind.
“They
beat us with sticks and electric cables,” Mr. Hamemi said in an
interview, at one point breaking into sobs. “They would even put sticks
in our private parts. They tied our private organs and pulled them. I
was also hung upside down on a door, hands tied, for five to six hours.”
Mohamed Salah Barhoumi, a taxi driver who went to prison twice, said he had received much the same treatment.
“I
was harassed for 13 years by the administration, and my family was,
too,” he said in an interview. “Three days in a row, they did the ‘roast
chicken’ on me. From night to day, slaps, blows, all kinds of kicking.”
The
torturers wanted information, and everyone gave up names and even
confessed to crimes that they had not committed, Mr. Hamemi said. “If
you refused to sign, they would take you back to the torture again,” he
said.
Rached
Jaidane, a math professor, was imprisoned for 13 years for plotting
against the president, a charge he says was invented. He has since tried
to sue officials from the former dictator, Mr. Ben Ali, on down, with
little success.
“It
is important to have public hearings, on television,” Mr. Jaidane said,
so that generations to come will know what happened. “It may be
difficult, but we must dare.”
Many
victims who hoped for swift justice after the revolution are
disillusioned by how slow the process has been. Advocates complain of a
lack of political will, as well as inefficiencies and divisions within
the truth commission. Ms. Bensedrine, the head of the commission, has
been criticized for combative leadership by colleagues and by the news
media, which is hostile to the idea of transitional justice.
She
said in an interview that the new government had initially backed the
commission’s work but had not followed through. Bureaucrats have delayed
its funds, she said, and the police stopped her from removing
government archives from the presidential palace, despite a promise of
cooperation.
Ms.
Bensedrine said she planned to build a database of thousands of cases.
The most egregious cases will be referred to special chambers for
prosecution. Because testifying can be as traumatic as the original
torture, psychiatrists are counseling victims.
The
commission has the power to subpoena witnesses and government archives
and to reopen previously tried cases, although that is being challenged
as unconstitutional. It is not bound by a statute of limitations.
Since President Beji Caid Essebsi
and his party, Nidaa Tounes, won elections in the fall, though, the
political ground in Tunisia has been shifting. Mr. Essebsi, who held
senior positions under both dictatorships, said in an interview that he
was preparing amendments to the law establishing the commission.
He
has proposed amnesty for businessmen accused of corruption if they
invest their money in Tunisia. The Islamist party, Ennahda, has signaled
support, but others have criticized the idea.
The
former cellmates are divided on what justice they prefer. Some want
financial compensation for their families after years of forced penury.
Mr. Barhoumi wants the restoration of his taxi license, which still
eludes him after four years of red tape.
Mr.
Hamemi said he wanted to hear his torturers apologize. “I could have
done it with my own hands after the revolution,” he said, “but I want to
do it by the law.”
Correction: May 20, 2015
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the start of the time frame for the Truth and Dignity Commission. It is 1955, not 1954.
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the start of the time frame for the Truth and Dignity Commission. It is 1955, not 1954.
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