NNWN / Tunis, 2017-07-04

The International rights watch dog has demanded the Tunisian Parliament to amend the law relating to people questioning the police conduct. According to Human Rights Watch, Tunisians who complain or question police conduct may find themselves facing retaliatory charges of insulting the police. HRW claimed to have documented a pattern of cases against people who filed a complaint or announced their intention to do so, after police officers allegedly insulted, arbitrary arrested, or assaulted them. The people who allege abuse find themselves facing charges of “insulting a public officer during the performance of his duties,” punishable by up to one year in prison, under article 125 of the Penal Code. Parliament should reform this law, HRW said on Tuesday.

According to HRW Tunisia director Amna Guellali, “Tunisian authorities are using the accusation of insulting the police to intimidate citizens who dare to complain about police behavior". “Tunisia’s nascent democracy needs to encourage well-founded complaints of police misconduct, not punish them.” Demonstrators hold flares during a demonstration against a bill that would protect those accused of corruption from prosecution on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, Tunisia, May 13, 2017.
According to HRW,  Salam and Salwa Malik, two journalists, were sentenced in May 2017 to six months in prison, later reduced to a fine. They were accused of insulting the police during a raid on their house seeking to arrest their brother, during which a policeman threatened to “blast” their 7-year-old nephew. The judge relied exclusively on the police statement, which the Maliks disputed, to convict them. In 2012, authorities prosecuted a human rights lawyer, Mariem Mnaouer, and in 2014, a blogger, Lina Ben Mhenni, in separate cases for “insulting” a state official, shortly after they had filed complaints against police officers for violence, supported by forensic documents describing injuries. After numerous hearings, their prosecutions continue.