“The State and its security and judicial apparatuses are responsible for the impunity of those responsible who evade sanctions”, declared representatives of civil society and human rights activists, during a meeting organized by the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), Sunday, December 11, 2022, in Tunis.
This international meeting focused on “protection mechanisms and the role of professional structures and human rights defense organizations in the fight against impunity”.
Official authorities top the list of perpetrators of attacks on journalists in almost all reports by the SNJT monitoring cell, said Khaoula Chabbeh, the cell’s coordinator, who reported 50 attacks by security forces. order over the past year. “The judicial system has not been effective in prosecuting the aggressors following complaints filed by journalists who, as a result, now believe less and less in the effectiveness of justice,” she said.
Ridha Raddaoui, a lawyer and human rights activist, said the state relies on legal texts to enforce these practices of impunity. “It is a legislative and procedural cover that allows impunity to become a practice”, he regretted.
For his part, the Director General of the Office of Exploration, Evaluation, and Analysis at the Ministry of the Interior, Riadh Jomni, indicated that any member of the security forces who has committed an offense, misdemeanor, or crime will be brought before the court which will have the final say, adding that the Interior Ministry has launched several initiatives to ensure direct communication between journalists and security officers, including several training sessions organized since 2013.
The official also said that human rights and civil liberties were among the main focuses of the ministry’s training programs, but these programs do not seem to have resulted in better behavior of law enforcement officers who continue to behave as if they were above the law, according to the testimonies of several journalists and civil society actors having been attacked without their attackers having been sanctioned.
