Authorities in Tunisia final month arrested 14 LGBTQ individuals who they allege violated Article 230 of the nation’s penal code that criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations with as much as three years in jail for each women and men.
Damj, an area LGBTQ group, mentioned the arrests came about in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, and on Djerba, an island off of Tunisia’s southeastern coast that’s fashionable with vacationers, over the span of two weeks.
“Police arrests of members of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood have escalated,” mentioned Damj. “These arrests have been concentrated in Tunis’s metropolis heart and Djerba. Sometimes, people are arrested, their belongings and telephones are searched, and they’re then referred to the judiciary below Article 230 and the articles on assaults in opposition to public morals.”
Damj additionally urged members of the LGBTQ neighborhood to contact them, a lawyer or trusted particular person, in addition to to stay silent till a lawyer arrives and never signal any paperwork with out reviewing them in particular person if they’re arrested.
Damj Program Officer Saif Ayadi informed AFP that 9 individuals have been arrested in Tunis and Djerba, and 6 individuals have been already sentenced and are serving as much as two years in jail.
A neighborhood gender research researcher who requested the Washington Blade to stay nameless mentioned authorities usually arrest LGBTQ individuals arbitrarily.
“The current arrests have taken place in Tunis and in Djerba, a southern, tourist-heavy area,” mentioned the researcher. “These are areas recognized for LGBTQ+ visibility, which explains why arrests are likely to spike there. Nonetheless, our evaluation exhibits that these arrests are typically random and never a part of any constant or deliberate sample.”
The researcher additionally mentioned Tunisia just isn’t a protected nation for LGBTQ individuals as a result of the federal government tends to favor repression and condemnation of non-heterosexual sexual identities.
Damj and different native LGBTQ organizations final yr urged Meta, the mum or dad firm of Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, to defend LGBTQ individuals from acts of cyberbullying and catfishing from regulation enforcement officers and others.
The Trans Coalition Unity Tunisia mentioned what is occurring to the nation’s LGBTQ neighborhood is now a sample and has turn out to be a part of a coverage of systematic repression.
“What is occurring can’t be ignored,” mentioned the group. “We comply with the nervousness of repeated arbitrary arrests, and sometimes with none clear authorized foundation. People are focused primarily based on their look and since they don’t match the everyday gender perceptions, and even simply because they’re in public locations. They’re then taken to the safety facilities, the place they’re searched and subjected to inhumane torture, that impacts their dignity.”
The Trans Coalition Unity Tunisia additionally mentioned cyberbullying has reached alarming ranges, with conventional media taking part in a job in anti-LGBTQ assaults.
“The continued digital monitoring and the defamation campaigns unfold on the media with none safety as if exposing individuals from the LGBTQ neighborhood has turn out to be an strange observe,” famous the group. “The State doesn’t acknowledge the rights of the LGBTQ neighborhood, however it’s chasing them, and monitoring them.”
“We should perceive that using the regulation on this manner has nothing to do with preserving the system, however reasonably a direct relationship with attempting to impose one id, one picture, one type of acceptable existence within the Tunisian societal cloth,” added Trans Coalition Unity Tunisia.
Tunisia is a North African nation that borders Libya, Algeria, and the Mediterranean Sea. The nation declared independence from France in 1956.
