Faycal Baraket, seen in the picture his mother is holding, Rachid Chammakhi and Sohnoun Jouhri died behind bars in 1991 [Fathi Belaid/AFP via Getty, 2011]
Complaints have been lodged with the UN Committee against Torture on behalf of six Tunisian victims protesting the failure of authorities to secure a single torture conviction, a human rights group said Thursday.
Since the launch in 2018 of special courts tasked with trying alleged cases of torture under the authoritarian governments that preceded the Arab Spring of 2011, “not one trial has led to a verdict”, the vice-president of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Mokhtar Trifi, told reporters.
The OMCT’s Tunisian branch is supporting complaints to the UN committee by two former prisoners and the families of four prisoners who died in custody.
Complainants Rached Jaidane and Mohamed Koussai Jaibi were both jailed from 1993 to 2006. Nabil Barketi died in custody in April 1987, while Faycal Baraket, Rachid Chammakhi and Sohnoun Jouhri died behind bars in 1991.
“I want a formal apology from the state,” Jaidane said. “That’s the important thing. I’m not seeking financial compensation.”
Nabil Barketi’s brother, Ridha, said: “We’re tired of seeking our rights through the courts.”
The OMCT’s legal director, Helene Legeay, said the UN committee was the “last recourse for these six victims” to have Tunisia condemned for its inaction and forced to provide “justice and reparation”.
She said the OMCT also hoped the complaints would “draw attention to the obstacles that litter the procedures for transitional justice” in the North African country.
She said the complaints could take three or four years, but had “every chance of being accepted” by the UN committee because Tunisia is a signatory of the UN Convention against Torture and “all avenues of recourse have been exhausted inside Tunisia”.
OMCT legal adviser Ines Lamloum said that among the obstacles that had stymied the complainants’ quest for justice were a shortage of qualified judges and the failure of alleged abusers to turn up in court.
She said above all there was a “lack of political will” from the current Tunisian government, which is itself accused of authoritarianism, to see the process through.
