Tunisia: Query response on
the situation and treatmentof the LGBTQI+ community
August 2023 (COI between 1st January 2020 and 31st July 2023)

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2

Content
A. Explanatory Note ....................................................................................................................... 5
B. List of Sources............................................................................................................................. 6I.

Legal framework ........................................................................................................ 9a.

Legislation ........................................................................................................................... 9i.

Constitution ........................................................................................................................ 9ii.

Criminal Code .................................................................................................................... 11iii.

Other relevant legislation affecting LGBTQI+ persons ..................................................... 13iv.

Ratification of international legal instruments ................................................................. 16b.

Implementation ................................................................................................................ 17i.

Arrests ............................................................................................................................... 17

1.

Entrapment ....................................................................................................................... 17

2.

Arbitrary arrests ................................................................................................................ 20

3.

Arbitrary arrests of LGBT asylum seekers and refugees ................................................... 23

4.

Mistreatment in Investigations......................................................................................... 24ii.

Treatment in Detention Facilities ..................................................................................... 30

iii. Prosecutions and convictions under laws that are deployed against the LGBTQI+
community ................................................................................................................................ 31II.

Treatment by State Actors ........................................................................................ 41a.

Public statements by government officials ...................................................................... 41b. Homophobia and transphobia in government institutions (incl. state-owned media,
within the police, in the prison service, in the judiciary) .......................................................... 42c.

Violence............................................................................................................................. 43d.

Online harassment ............................................................................................................ 44e.

Discrimination ................................................................................................................... 46i.

Access to state-owned housing ........................................................................................ 46ii.

Access to public health services........................................................................................ 46iii.

Access to state employment (e.g. civil service) ................................................................ 48

iv.

Access to public education ............................................................................................... 48

III.

Societal Attitudes Towards LGBTQI+ Individuals ....................................................... 493

a.

Representation in Media and social media ...................................................................... 49b.

Representation by influential cultural, political and religious figures .............................. 51c.

Impact of societal norms on state attitudes ..................................................................... 51IV.

Treatment by Non-State Actors ................................................................................ 54a.

Violence............................................................................................................................. 54b.

Online harassment ............................................................................................................ 55

c.

Discrimination ................................................................................................................... 56i.

Access to housing .............................................................................................................. 56

ii.

Access to work .................................................................................................................. 56

iii.

Specificities for LGBTQI individuals living in rural areas ................................................... 57

iv.

Specific hardships linked to socio-economic difficulties .................................................. 57v.

Specific situation of LGBTQI+ individuals displaced to Tunisia......................................... 58

V.

Treatment of LGBTQI+ Organizations and Human Rights Defenders .......................... 59a.

Government recognition of LGBTQI+ NGOs ..................................................................... 60

b. State treatment of LGBTQI+ activists or those supporting their case or those perceived
as such ....................................................................................................................................... 62
Woman human rights defender Rania Amdouni released ................................................... 62
VI.

Availability of State Protection ................................................................................. 66a.

Investigation and Prosecution of Crimes Against LGBTQI+ Individuals ............................ 68b.

Fear of Reporting to Authorities ....................................................................................... 70

4

A. Explanatory Note
Background
This report presents Country of Origin Information (COI) on Tunisia focusing on issues identified to be of
relevance in refugee status determination for Tunisian nationals of the LGBTQI+ community.
The COI presented in this report is illustrative but not exhaustive of the information available in the
public domain, nor is it determinative of any individual human rights or asylum claim. All sources are
publicly available and a direct hyperlink has been provided.
In this report, ARC has complemented its research on English-speaking sources with French-speaking
sources. Relevant sources have been unofficially translated and are described as such. Please note thatthese are not official translations.
A list of sources and databases consulted is also provided in this report, to enable users to conduct
further research and source assessments. Research concentrated on events that took place between 1st
January 2020 and 31st July 2023. All sources included in this report were accessed between May andearly August 2023.

Disclaimer
This document is intended to be used as a tool to help to identify relevant COI and the COI referred to inthis report can be considered by decision makers in assessing asylum applications and appeals. While westrive to be as comprehensive as possible, no amount of research can ever provide an exhaustive pictureof the situation. It is therefore important to note that the absence of information should not be taken as
evidence that an issue, incident or violation does not exist. This report is also not a substitute forindividualised case-specific research and therefore this document should not be submitted in isolation
as evidence to refugee decision-making authorities. Whilst every attempt has been made to ensure
accuracy, the authors accept no responsibility for any errors included in this report.

5B. List of Sources
Not all of the sources listed here have been consulted for each issue addressed in the report. Additionalsources to those individually listed were consulted via database searches. This non-exhaustive list isintended to assist in further case-specific research. To find out more about an organisation, view the‘About us’ tab of a source’s website.
Note that we were commissioned to search for both English and French-speaking sources.
Databases
Asylos’s Research Notes [subscription only]
EUAA COI Portal
European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI)
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada – Responses to Information Requests
Relief Web
UNHCR Refworld
Media
African Arguments
All Africa
Al Jazeera
Courrier International
The East African
Edge Media Network
Equal Eyes
Euronews
France24
Global Gayz
Libération
The GuardianInter Press Service
The New Humanitarian (Africa)
Reuters
Rights Africa
Pink News
Sources
76 Crimes
Afro Barometer
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
African Human Rights Coalition
African Studies Centre Leiden
Amnesty International (Tunisia)
Article 19
Bertelsmann Stiftung – BTI Transformation Index
Cairo Institute for Human Rights

6

CIVICUS
Civil Rights Defenders
Commonwealth Equality Network
EASO’s List of sources in its report ‘Researching the situation of lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons (LGBT)in countries or origin’
Equal Rights Trust
EuroMed Rights
Freedom House (Tunisia)
Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux (FTDES)
Frontline Defenders
Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE)
Human Dignity Trust (Tunisia)
Human Rights Watch (Tunisia)
Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa
International Bar Association
International Centre for Prison Studies
International Commission of Jurists
International Federation for Human Rights (Africa)
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)ILGA Database
International Service for Human Rights
InterPride
Kaleidoscope Trust
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Minority Rights Group International (MRG)
Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM)
Out Right International
Project on Middle East Democracy (Promed) (Tunisia)
Sexual Rights Initiative
United Nations Committee Against Torture
United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
United Nations Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity
United Nations News Centre
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) (Tunisia)
United Nations Population Fund
United Nations Secretary General reports
United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate
standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context
United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinionand expression
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment
United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences

7

United Nations Women
United States Department of State (Annual human rights reports)

8

I.

Legal frameworka. Legislationi. Constitution

In February 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Tunisian police arresting and using violenceagainst LGBTI activists during civilian protests that began in many regions of Tunisia in January 2021,
sparked by declining economic conditions and exacerbated by the pandemic:
Tunisia’s Legal Obligations
Tunisia’s continued crackdown against activists violates their basic rights, including their right to privacy,
bodily integrity, free movement, free expression, assembly, and association, including on the internet, as
well as their right to nondiscrimination and protection under the law. The abuses violate Tunisia’sconstitution and international treaties to which Tunisia is a party.
Article 37 of the Tunisian Constitution from 2014 guarantees the right to “assembly and peacefuldemonstration,” also protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African
Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and the Arab Charter of Human Rights, to which Tunisia is a stateparty.
The constitution allows for a lawyer to be present during interrogations and requires taking detainees
before a prosecutor within 48 hours, immediately informing them of the reason for their arrest, andallowing them to contact a lawyer and family member. The constitution also prohibits “mental andphysical torture.”
The right to privacy and nondiscrimination are reflected in Tunisia’s 2014 constitution. Article 24 obligates
the government to protect the rights to privacy and the inviolability of the home. Article 21 provides that
“All citizens, male and female, have equal rights and duties, and are equal before the law without any
1
discrimination.”

In August 2021 the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) published an article by journalist Asma
Ajroudi about the demonstrations that followed Tunisia president Kais Saied’s July 2021 announcement
to dismiss the prime minister, suspend parliament and assume new powers:
While the potential for state-imposed restrictions is worrying, there is an under-reported, pre-existing
atmosphere of hostility toward rights activists and the media among segments of society that could
escalate under a period of political uncertainty. A wave of grassroots animosity toward social progressives
and alternative voices (impacting LGBTQ individuals particularly) has manifested in public and online2
harassment and even local-level police action.

In an article originally published in October 2021 in French in the newspaper Le Monde, Amnesty
International’s Deputy Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa Amna Guellali wrote about
Tunisia’s president intent to carve up the constitution:
1

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia: Police Arrest, Use Violence Against LGBTI Activists, 23 February 2021
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)/Asma Ajroudi, Ten Years on From Revolution, Tunisia in Uncharted
Waters, 5 August 2021
2

9

The President would now like to replace the Constitution – which is certainly imperfect but incorporates
essential rights – with new texts that are likely to challenge a number of its achievements. They would
represent a shift from the democratic space that gave rise to the 2014 Constitution to technocratic
opacity, on the pretext of getting rid of the unnecessary “red tape” that has ended up paralyzing the Stateinstitutions.
Despite the deceptively reassuring tone of the presidential decree with regard to guaranteeing “public
and individual rights and freedoms”, Kaïs Saïed’s conception of human rights is neither reassuring inspeech nor in practice. As a candidate, he opposed gender equality in inheritance, citing sharia law. He
has also spoken out in favour of criminalizing homosexuality, calling homosexuals “deviants” and labellingthe associations that defend them the puppets of foreign forces wanting to change Tunisian society. As
president, he defended the retention of the death penalty and reaffirmed his opposition to equal
inheritance.
Since declaring a state of emergency, the President has resorted to abusive restrictions on freedom of
movement. On the pretext of fighting corruption, he has placed dozens of public figures under indefinite
and arbitrary house arrest, and he made clear his desire to take control of the judiciary by declaring, on
the evening of 25 July, that he would personally preside over the Public Prosecutor’s Office in certain
cases, although he did later retract this statement. This rhetoric and these practices therefore bear the3seeds of a denial of rights and freedoms, and this represents a real threat to Tunisia.

The online media Rights Africa has published an article in November 2022 reporting an opinion issued bya high court in Tunisia about the country’s anti-homosexuality law:
A high court in Tunisia has issued an opinion that the country’s anti-homosexuality law is unconstitutional.
The law will remain on the books unless it is overturned by Tunisia’s Constitutional Court, but any
defendants charged under the anti-homosexuality law, Article 230, can cite the new opinion from the
Court of Cassation in their defense.
Mounir Baatour, founder of the Tunisian LGBTQ rights organization Shams, explained the situation:“Article 230 remains in force, but what has changed is that now any defendant who is tried under Article
230 can cite the ruling of the Court of Cassation to the court before which he is tried. … There is a greatchance that people will be acquitted of charges of homosexuality because the Court of Cassation has
undercut Article 230.
The opinion from the Tunisian Court of Cassation came in the case of a gay man, M.R., who was charged
with violating Article 230 after he complained to police that he had been raped by his former boyfriend.
The court stated that it considers Article 230 to be contrary to international treaties and to the Tunisian4
Constitution, newly adopted on July 25.

The Human Dignity Trust also reported about this ruling of the Tunisian Court of Cassation in their online
section about law and legal developments in Tunisia:

3

Amnesty International (AI), Tunisia : Carving up the Constitution represents a threat to human rights, 5 October
2021
4
Rights Africa, Tunisia : A high court says anti-gay law is unconstitutional, 2 November 2022

10

In December [2022] Tunisia’s highest court (the Court of Cassation) ruled that the prosecution of a LGBT
activist was “null and void.” The man, along with five others, had originally been charged in 2015 under
5
Article 230 of the penal code which criminalises same-sex activity.

ii. Criminal CodeAccording to the Human Dignity Trust (HDT), in Tunisia:
Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited under the Penal Code 1913, which criminalises acts of ‘sodomy’.
This provision carries a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment. Both men and women are
criminalised under this law.
Tunisia adopted the ‘sodomy’ provision in its 1913 Penal Code, which is still in force today (subject toamendments). Tunisia was at the time a protectorate state of France, however France had long since6decriminalised same-sex sexual activity. As such the criminalising law is of local origin.

In May 2020, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report analysing data collected by
Tunisian NGOs in several local “anti-discrimination points”. Using an online translation tool, deepl.com,
the following information was translated from French into English:
The Tunisian Criminal Code was promulgated during the period of the French protectorate by decree on 9
July 1913. Although it has been amended several times, notably in 2005 and 2011, it still contains
discriminatory discriminatory provisions.
These prevent the exercise of certain freedoms, particularly individual freedoms. Often, exercising one's
freedom of conscience and expressing one's areligious convictions can be perceived not only as a nuisanceto public order or morality (121 ter Penal Code), but also as a deliberate attempt to embarrass others in a
way that offends modesty (226 bis Penal Code).[…]
Similarly, articles 226 and 226 bis of the Penal Code condemn "offences" based on vague and undefinednotions such as "indecent assault", "indecent assault" and "offence against morality", which leads to thearrest and punishment of people on the basis of their free choice of behaviour, expression and conduct.
choice of behaviour, expression and appearance.
These articles are often used to condemn the expression of gender identity, as in the case of transgenderor non-binary people, for example. The mere fact of wearing make-up and nail varnish can displease thepolice and lead to arrests on the grounds of indecency and public decency.
In addition, article 230 of the Penal Code punishes homosexuality, which poses a threat to the privacy ofpeople of their sexuality, identities or gender expressions. This article has become a de facto weapon ofrepression for the police, who can even in the absence of any sexual relationship between persons of thesame sex, can use other clues, such as searching the suspect's phone or computer. At the same time, theauthorities are using a means of evidence that is considered illegal and unscientific - anal examination 7
because it violates the physical integrity of the suspect.

5

Human Dignity Trust (HDT), Tunisia – Summary, no date [Last accessed: 03 August 2023]
Human Dignity Trust (HDT), Tunisia – Summary, no date [Last accessed: 03 August 2023]
7
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Report analysing data on cases of discrimination collected by the AntiDiscrimination Points, May 2021, p. 8 [Rapport d'analyse des données sur les cas de discrimination récoltés par lespoints Anti-Discrimination]
6

11

In December 2020, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) wrote
in its annual report on the rights of homosexuals and the criminalisation of homosexual acts across theglobe that in Tunisia, ‘Article 230 of the Penal Code (2010) prohibits “sodomy” and prescribes thepenalty of imprisonment of up to 3 years. Additionally, under Article 226, anyone found guilty ofdeliberately and publicly promoting indecency is liable to six months’ imprisonment and a fine’.8
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia.9 In the report, which was
published in 2022, it was noted that:
Though much of the Tunisian Penal Code has been extensively amended, Article 230 has remained
untouched since its adoption in 1913 under French colonial rule. Importantly, Article 230 has two
versions, in both French and Arabic. The French version of the law does not reference gender. It states
that, “sodomy, if it does not fall into any of the cases specified in the previous articles, is punishable bythree years in prison.” The authoritative Arabic version explicitly calls out sex between women and sex
between men. It replaces “sodomy” with Liwat (masculine homosexuality) and El Mousahaka (female
homosexuality).” Both Liwat and El Mousahaka constitute criminal offenses punishable by up to three
years in prison. The result of this change is particularly significant because the Arabic version is used as
the authoritative text, and that the offending perceived criminal act is homosexuality rather than10
penetration.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
The process of revising the Tunisian penal code, although discussed in several meetings with government
officials, seems to be at an unknown stage of its progress and does not seem to be done by including
justice actors as well as civil society. This is even more serious when we see the lack of understanding of
the different realities of LGBT people in Tunisia.

11

In December 2021, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)
published a report on laws criminalising same-sex sexual relationships and wrote about criminalisingprovisions in Tunisia:

8

International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), State-Sponsored Homophobia Global Legislation Overview Update 2020, December 2020, p. 124
9
See Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ Peoplein Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 202210
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 31
11
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021

12

Article 230 of the Penal Code (2010) prohibits “sodomy” and prescribes the penalty of imprisonment of up
to three years. Additionally, under Article 226, anyone found guilty of deliberately and publicly promoting
indecency is liable to six months’ imprisonment and a fine. In practice, trans and gender-diverse people
have been indirectly criminalised (de facto criminalisation) under provisions regarding consensual same12
sex sexual acts and public indecency provisions.

Freedom House wrote in its 2023 Freedom in the World report that in Tunisia, “LGBT+ people continue
to face legal discrimination. Same-sex sexual activity remains illegal, with the penal code calling for
prison sentences of up to three years for ‘sodomy’. This law has been enforced in practice in recent
years”.13

iii. Other relevant legislation affecting LGBTQI+ persons
In December 2020, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)
published its annual report on the rights of homosexuals and the criminalisation of homosexual acts
across the globe, which listed, among others, “non-explicit legal barriers” to freedom of expression forLGBT Tunisians:
Amended in 2004, Article 226 bis of the Penal Code (1913) criminalises any act that publicly draws
attention to the opportunity to “commit debauchery” through any form of writing, audio, or visual
recording. This provision is in the same section entitled “attacks on morals,” where the provisions
criminalising consensual same-sex sexual acts are located. Article 226, which punishes “indecent
behaviour in public” by imprisonment up to six months, has been used against trans and gender diverse
14
people.

The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia, in which she highlighted:
Terms like “morality,” “indecency,” and “debauchery” provide power to prosecutors to criminalise
queerness and gender nonconformity within institutional and legal settings. There are laws with vague
connections to sexual behaviors—such as the prohibition of “sodomy” (Tunisia) or “sexual acts against
nature” (Lebanon)—that have been predominately applied to queer communities, as well as sex workers
of all sexualities and gender identities. In all three countries, these laws are routinely justified with theobservation that they can be used against heterosexual people and sexual acts, but in practice this israrely if ever observed, except in application to sex workers. Though sex work was not the focus of thisresearch, among the cases reviewed, queer and trans sex workers received the brunt of the charges andpenalties. To counter the exploitation of vagueness for the purpose of persecution, it is important toverify and analyze the exact laws used. Prior work has shown that the framework of laws used toprosecute queerness goes beyond the few familiar, prominently discussed laws used to prosecute the12International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), Our Identities under Arrest,
December 2021, p. 108
13
Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2023 – Tunisia, 13 April 2023, Section F. Rule of Law
14
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), State-Sponsored Homophobia Global Legislation Overview Update 2020, December 2020, p. 149

13

queer community 95 (e.g.: Article 230 in Tunisia). In practice, a complex interplay of laws is applied, andthese vary depending on who is targeted, as well as the mechanisms used (e.g. based on physical on15
street surveillance or through digital evidence).

The same source reported:
In Tunisia, the principle laws used against LGBTQ people are drawn from the Penal Code (1913). The mostprominent of these is Article 230, which criminalizes sodomy and homosexuality. Other key criminal
provisions include those related to sex work and public indecency. Charges are deployed strategicallyduring the process of prosecution, often with lesser and more vague laws used for an initial arrest. The
use of lesser laws for the initial arrest may later be used to provide pretext for in-depth investigation
which may result in the imposition of lengthier sentences. When they can’t use 230, they use [anotherlaw] … The goal for them is the punishment, you know. There is no not guilty. There is always, ‘You are
16
guilty. We must find the article.’”Further, the same source noted:
Two common charges for the initial arrest are public indecency (Article 226), and violation of public
morality (Article 226 bis). These laws are vague as their terms have been left undefined by legislators. It isbelieved that the lack of clarification is intentional, as police and prosecutors can bend these laws
according to circumstances. Local authorities frequently strengthen these initial charges by adding
criminal offenses directly related to sex work. While the highest penalties are imposed on LGBTQ sex
workers, laws criminalizing sex work are frequently employed against LGTBQ people, even where nomoney is changing hands. As one source noted, “Article 231 is used mostly for women and it’s about sex
work... [and in] addition to that there is Article 232 which is basically about the intermediary in sex work[and] Article 234, which is basically for public decency and the morals.” In some instances, a single charge
may be used as pretext for arrest, but as previously noted, trans women tend to receive harsher
treatment. “For example, when you find a trans [person] in the public area with their clothes… they
consider that as offending morals and [an example of] public indecency. And if that person had a sexual
17
relationship with another person, the Article 230 [charge] is also applicable.

The same source further reported on the deployment of cyber laws in Tunisia:
In Tunisia, the interviewees report multiple similarities to events described in Egypt. Of especial (sic) noteis the use of the Telecommunications Code against LGBTQ people, as Article 86 of theTelecommunications Code stipulates that: “Anyone who intends to offend or disturb others using
telecommunications networks shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period between one year andtwo years, and a fine from one hundred and up to one thousand dinars.” Interviewees point out that thelaw may be applied at a larger scope, as the Telecommunications Code can be used to grant increased
15

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 30
16Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 31
17
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 33

14

legal authority in searches of digital devices. Here, Article 230 of the Penal Code is of greatest significance,
as it has already been used in the other Penal Codes used against the LGBTQ community along with
Articles 226 and 226b. One interviewee noted, “in practice and according to the code of digital laws …
[law enforcement and prosecutors] go through the private life, digital accounts of people and […] use thatas evidence to basically criminalize them. [Then] according to public decency and good manners [laws] …
you can actually prosecute someone for public decency or good manners. So, it is mostly what it’s used
for and also as well it could be used eventually for Article 230 as well.”While gathering data for this report, no documentation of the direct use of Tunisia’s Communications Law
used in conjunction with Article 230 was identified, but its use to supplement adjacent laws wasobserved: public indecency (Article 226), and violation of public morality (Article 226 bis). One of theinterviewees pointed out how Telecommunications Code laws are currently reserved for surveilling
journalists and other such cases that hold more political sensitivity, while the LGBTQ cases are mainly
confined to penal laws and procedures. As has already occurred in Egypt, extending the applications ofArticles 230 of the Penal Code and 86 of the Telecommunications Code would likely result incorresponding increases on the reliance of digital evidence in prosecutions, as well as increasing resources
allocation to technological evidence. However, there have been instances in which extensions of theCommunications Law have been applied to suppress the rights of LGBTQ persons. For example, one
interviewee noted that, “One case of using [this] law: a person from an LGBTIQ+ organization went toreport a police officer and instead got beaten up. He posted a video explaining what happened in social
media which led the police officer mentioned in his video to accuse him of “attacking the police through18
an online post”.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 on the rights ofminorities in Tunisia in 2021. Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information wastranslated from French into English:
However, other laws are also used to criminalise members of the LGBTQI++ community, including article
226bis on offences against public decency, article 231 on sex work, article 125 on insulting a public official
19
and article 226 on public indecency.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and later reported that:
Trans people are not allowed to change their name or gender markers on official documents and do nothave access to health services that would allow them to make a gender transition. Tunisia's legislation on
civil status is not in line with international developments towards the recognition of gender identity andmakes this population invisible - especially in the figures. The non-conformity between the official identity

18

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 57-58
19
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 5 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]15

and the social identity of trans people keeps them in a situation of great vulnerability and social
20
exclusion.

The US Department of State wrote about the unavailability of legal gender recognition in its 2022
Country Report on Tunisia:
Availability of Legal Gender Recognition: There is no legal option for individuals to change their gendermarkers on official documents or to express a nonbinary gender identity. Transsexual, transgender, andintersex individuals maintain the gender marker assigned at birth on their official documents, even after
any transition or a medical intervention is undertaken. CSOs reported this made LGBTQI+ individuals
21
vulnerable to violence, harassment, and discrimination from society and government actors.

EuroMed Rights (EMHRN) reported in a 2023 report on the situation of women in Tunisia that “LBTQI+
women: Article 230 of the Penal Code is still in force and criminalises homosexuality. With the exceptionof a decision that recognised the right to change the identity of an intersex person, the justice systemremains hostile to the recognition of the rights of sexual minorities”.22

iv. Ratification of international legal instruments
In May 2020, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report analysing data collected by
Tunisian NGOs in several local “anti-discrimination points”. Using an online translation tool, deepl.com,
the following information was translated from French into English:
Tunisia has ratified almost all the international human rights instruments. These include the Charter of
the United Nations (1945), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948), the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social andCultural Rights (ICESCR) (1966).
Then there are instruments with a specific scope, such as : The International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), and the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice (1978), theConvention against Discrimination in Education (1960), and the Declaration on the Elimination of All
Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981).
After 14 January 2011, and with a view to strengthening the protection of human rights, Tunisia ratified
other international human rights instruments. It acceded to the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court (1998) by Decree-Law No. 2011-4 of 19 February 2011.
20

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021
21
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report, 23 February 2023, pp. 31-32, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
22
EuroMed Rights (EMHRN), Report on the situation of women (legislative framework; discrimination; vulnerable
or marginalised populations; other topics), March 2023

16

In 2018, Tunisia acceded to the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual
Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, also known as the Lanzarote Convention (2007).
In 2018, Tunisia also acceded to the Maputo Protocol (of 11 July 2003) on the Rights of Women in Africa
or Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
Tunisia has also ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (2002) by virtue of
Decree-Law No. 2011-5 of 1913 February 2011. Tunisia has also ratified the first Optional Protocol to theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) (Protocol). Tunisia acceded to this Protocol in
2011, in order to recognise that the Human Rights Committee (H.R.C.) is competent to receive andconsider complaints from individuals, subject to its jurisdiction, who claim to be victims of a violation, by aState party, of any of the rights set out in the ICCPR. When ratifying the Copenhagen Convention of 18
December 1979 on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1985, Tunisia enteredreservations and made a declaration. The reservations were withdrawn by the decree-law of 24 October
2011. However, Tunisia has not ratified the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights
23
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

b. Implementationi. Arrests
1. Entrapment
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and stated that “Thecomplexity and progression in the monitoring and entrapment that has been observed in Tunisia isconcerning”.24
The same report provided information on the length of time spent by police officers gathering evidence:
The duration over which digital evidence is gathered in the course of prosecution is another importantelement of its collection. Tunisia and Egypt demonstrated similar patterns of evidence gathering prior toarrest, connected to the police’s use of monitoring and entrapment […]In Tunisia, there was no evidence of a systematic surveillance operation. Once the police “hear about aperson, or they see a person … it’s kind of vindictive, they follow this person, and they start gathering dataon this person basically.” 297 If the first contact is the result of social engineering or the use of a fakeprofile, then during the data-gathering stage the police will also tailor the digital evidence to their needs.
One interviewee found that if “they are using Grindr or something like that, they are already actuallysetting up this person. Like before even anything happens, they are doing this so obviously they aregathering proof before; like they are creating basically that “proof.” Data collected through catfishing or
ad hoc monitoring can later be put into play, where: “[Police] just wait for the person to do just one
mistake, that would allow them to actually make the step and arrest them; whether it’s a fight, whether
23

Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Report analysing data on cases of discrimination collected by theAnti-Discrimination Points, May 2021, pp. 8-9-10 [Rapport d'analyse des données sur les cas de discrimination
récoltés par les points Anti-Discrimination]
24
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 96

17they are like out [...] they will find a way to turn it from what they arrested them for into arresting themfor homosexuality.”
Neither the interviews nor the case files provided precise information on the duration over which thisstrategy typically plays out. However, the investigation will be shorter where the police are confident thatthey have what they need to ensure conviction. Then, “police sometimes intervene at the same time. In
other cases, when the police think that they will not find anything, they try to intercept those persons and25
they take more time, of course.”

The same source also indicated that:
In each country [Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia], interviewees suggested that other individuals who
communicated with someone investigated for their LGTBQ identity would also be at risk of arrest,
indicating that an arrest of one person in the LGBTQ community might have substantial ripple effects
throughout the community as a whole. “What you need to know is that once they get a hold of one
person’s phone, they start going into other people. because they see conversations with other people, sothey start requesting the presence of other people too. [...] this is why when we talk about “smart”
phones, we always say these devices are used as intelligence for the police forces more than anything
26
else.”The same source wrote further about techniques of physical surveillance conducted by the police inTunisia:
One of the Tunisian lawyers [interviewed for the study] noted that “they spy… they are in the bars or inplaces where they know that there are people who go there in order to go on a date or something likethat.” The interviewee noted that other commonly surveilled place include those known for “cruising” ortouristic areas where queer people from more rural areas or queer tourists may congregate. Importantly,
this is done often by plainclothed officers: “You can’t tell sometimes that they are police, you think they
are citizens. So they kind of spy and then whenever you are about to do something; that’s when theycome and get you.[..]In Tunisia, street-level surveillance most severely impacts the most vulnerable sections of the queer
community, specifically trans people, refugees, and sex workers: “So basically the police know
approximately in which areas these sex workers work and even patrol [there]” Once an individual isidentified “they use their telephones to go through their messages because most of the time sex workers
would actually meet clients through messages or apps. They just go through that to confirm whatever27
they are trying to arrest them for.”The same source wrote about entrapment techniques used by the police:

25

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 72-73
26
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 75
27
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 76-77,79

18

In Tunisia, there is now an observable shift towards using digital devices and apps to target individuals
and it was mentioned in all but one of the interviews. The main method observed was surveillance andmonitoring of Facebook activity. However, in a pattern similar to that in Egypt, the Tunisian authorities
are now beginning to use fake profiles on both Facebook and dating apps. “Most of the time they use
Facebook and Messenger. They create a fake profile on Facebook… they add the person online; they starta conversation with them to be able to actually have proof.” As of yet, the interviews and cases
documented only a sporadic or arbitrary application of these methods by certain officers and precincts.
Interviewees noted that when fake accounts are employed, police use an unusual level of detail: “theycreate full profiles. Most of the time, they use fake photos, they create a fake story, to be able to collectas much information as possible from people.” In some cases this may be attributable to the size andcloseness of the communities in“smaller regions… [where] there is more proximity between the prosecutors and the people... [T]hey
usually know these people so what they do is that they actually create themselves fake profiles to build
something on these people so then when they have enough to actually prosecute this person... like amoney dispute or something like this, and they would already have a file that is ready and full of
proof.”’[…]
While the research interviews were being conducted, reports came in from interviewees and local experts
about Tunisian police in Sousse making numerous accounts on Grindr in order to identify and entrap
people. One interviewee said that, “[Sousse is] known as a touristic place. And there was information thatpolice are systematically using chat [and dating] applications and websites and especially Grindr to kind of
identify
homosexuals, etc.” Organisations such as Damj immediately created campaigns to warn the community.
When the fake accounts began to initiate contact,“they actually made meeting points with them, like they wanted to meet them. But luckily the...queer
people [found out] that the police [had] noticed the [Grindr app], and understood that this was police andvery quickly they started sharing on LGBTQ Facebook groups ‘to pay attention that there are police using
the app, and just to be certain that you are safe.’”28
As a consequence of the effective community response, no arrests were documented.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published early 2023 the results of a study on anti-LGBT digital violence in
Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Tunisia and found that:
Authorities in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia have integrated technology into their policing ofLGBT people. Security forces across these countries have combined traditional methods of targeting ofLGBT people—such as street-level harassment, arrests, and crackdowns—with digital targeting—such as
entrapment on social media and dating applications, online extortion, online harassment and outing, andreliance on private digital information in prosecutions—as tactics to target and prosecute LGBT people.
The public nature of digital platforms has granted authorities across the region increased access to LGBT
people’s private lives. Dating applications and social media have become sites of potential violence andenabled government infiltration of private spheres where LGBT people congregate and organize.
The authorities across the five countries monitor social media and search LGBT people’s personal devices
to collect images, text messages and chats, and other information that is subsequently used to persecutethem. Any suspicion of homosexuality or gender variance may prompt security forces to search devices.
Of the cases documented in this report that involve interactions between LGBT people and security

28

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 93-94, App And Social Media Monitoring And Entrapment

19

forces, the security officers searched LGBT people’s phones, at times by force, in every instance. In mostcases, selfies, other photos, chats, and the mere presence of same-sex dating applications, such as Grindr,
were used by security forces and prosecutors to justify prosecution and abuses against LGBT people,
29
based on their presumed or actual sexual orientation or gender identity.

2. Arbitrary arrests
2020
No relevant information could be found amongst the sources consulted within the time frame for thisreport.
2021
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and noted:
The multiply marginalized are more at risk. Although all queer persons in these countries [Egypt, Lebanon,
Tunisia] face risks, those who are multiply marginalized often experience the most violence from police
and the criminal justice systems. Queer persons who were viewed as “feminine,” both among transwomen and gay men, were more likely be prosecuted than those who presented as more “masculine.”
Queer cis women, non-binary people, and trans men face varying and specific challenges societally andlegally, resulting in charges being brought against them differently under the three countries’ legal
systems. However, they represent a lower number of cases in courts as seen in this report. This does notsuggest a lack of targeting by law enforcement, but rather the research of this report showed lessevidence of these cases. More research would need to be done on the impacts faced by queer cis women30
and non-binary people in courts.

The same source reported about the lack of official statistics on prosecutions, trials and arrests:
Increasing the visibility of LGBTQ people in Tunisia has resulted in increased public backlash against thecommunity. Criminalisation of LGBTQ persons continues, including reports of torture of LGBTQ people incustody. The provisions of the Penal Code still allow for targeting of persons on the basis of their gender
expression, regardless of the presence of evidence of a prohibited act. Prosecutions and arrests based on
gender and sexual identity are common, but official statistics on prosecutions, trials, and arrests are31
scarce.

The same source further reported that:29

Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All This Terror Because of a Photo” Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequencesfor LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa, 21 February 2023
30
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 2
31
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 26

20

Findings from the interviews [with 6 Tunisian lawyers and one case worker] can be used to show that
Article 230 is heavily used against those who the authorities deem to have engaged in “Liwat,” or simply
assumed to be queer and therefore to have engaged in anal sex. “Its application has been [...], especiallyafter 2011 [Tunisian Revolution] has been only applied to men, not to [cis] women.” Here, it should be
noted that the authorities, including judges, prosecutors, and police, rarely if ever categorized transwomen as women. In addition to being denied human rights and civil liberties, trans women are some of
the most targeted persons under Article 230.
In targeting queer men and trans people, authorities have also relied upon slippage from the act of
sodomy to the state of being that is Liwat. By doing so, proof of a physical act is not required forconviction, but rather a conviction can be achieved via forced confessions or digital evidence (what isdeemed digital evidence of a crime of queerness in these contexts is expanded on further in the report).
As one interviewee put it, “[the] expression “sodomy” is very vague; […] either [the authorities] say that
there is an intent to do those acts and to promote these acts in the area where they are or they justmention that apparently they are [gay].” Another specified that Article 230, “has been applied wheneverpolice suspect that you are homosexual based on your outfit, based on your maybe how you talk, how
you are behaving.”
The interviews [with 6 Tunisian lawyers and one case worker] can be used to show that in practice, allapplications of Article 230 are understood to require a physical act, but this act is not necessarily
penetration: “they need to be caught in action for them to be directly arrested.” For this reason, LGBTQ
people are not arrested under Article 230 but rather may be charged with it later, after evidence can begathered. Initial arrests are made based on justification provided by other laws, and charges strengthened
32
by application of Article 230 (more on this below).

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in its World Report 2022 about events which took place in 2021 in
Tunisia:
Tunisian police officers repeatedly targeted lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI)
activists at general protests that took place in January in Tunis against deteriorating economic conditions
and the government’s handling of the pandemic and singled them out for mistreatment. Officers
arbitrarily arrested LGBTI activists, assaulted them, and threatened several of them with violence
including rape and murder. Some used social media to harass and “out” the identity of the activists byrevealing private information such as their home addresses and phone numbers, and incited individuals to
33
ridicule and harass them.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
LGBT sex workers face multiple and aggravated forms of discrimination and, if they are homosexual ortrans, double criminalization for homosexuality, morality or indecent assault. This criminalization,
combined with a strong stigma attached to this activity, renders sex workers extremely vulnerable to32

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 31-32
33
Human Rights Watch (HRW), World Report 2022 – Tunisia, 13 January 202221

violence, police abuse and blackmail. I have received several testimonies from gay and trans sex workers
who were victims of police harassment, extortion, and violence by law enforcement officers. In somecases, the police even appear to interrogate and arrest women suspected of sex work simply on the basisof their appearance or background rather than observed illegal activity.
[…] The testimonies gathered during the visit describe both legal and police harassment aimed at muzzlingand punishing any attempt to free sexual and gender identities that do not correspond to the dominant34
social norm.

2022
In July 2022, the News Agency Al Jazeera reported that in Tunis, “Police have arrested a leading gay
rights campaigner in a violent pushback against young people during a rally against the upcomingreferendum on the Tunisian president’s newly proposed constitution.”35
The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia that:
The law criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults; however, police enforced thelaw as if it also criminalized LGBTQI+ identity absent sexual activity. Convictions for same-sex sexual
conduct between adults carry up to a three-year prison sentence. According to NGOs, authorities
occasionally used the law to detain and question persons concerning their sexual activities and sexual
orientation, reportedly at times based on appearance alone. NGOs reported in some instances, LGBTQI+
individuals were targeted under the penal code article criminalizing “infringement of morality or public
morals”; conviction carries a penalty of six months in prison and a fine. The vague language of the penal
code, as well as the lack of a legal definition of public morality, allows police wide discretion on what
constitutes a morality or public morals crimes.

36

The same source echoed a report by the NGO Democracy for the Arab World Now, stating that:
In a June report from NGO Democracy for the Arab World Now, Mounir Baatour, a lawyer and activist
who cofounded and is the president of Shams, an NGO advocating for LGBTQI+ rights, stated laws
criminalizing public exposure and indecent assault represented “a threat to the LGBTQI+ community.” Hestated there were approximately 120 cases against LGBTQI+ persons each year based on the criminal
code.

37

January – May 2023
34

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity – Institutional violence, 18 June 2021
35
Aljazeera/Elizia Volkmann, Police arrest leading gay activist in crackdown on Tunisia rally, 23 July 2022
36
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, p. 30, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
37
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, p. 30, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics

22

No relevant information could be found amongst the sources consulted within the time frame for thisreport.

3. Arbitrary arrests of LGBT asylum seekers and refugees
2021
In October 2021 Human Rights Watch (HRW) published an article on its website about the attack on the
director of a Tunis-based LGBT rights group:
Two police officers apparently brutally attacked the director of a Tunis-based LGBT rights group on
October 21, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. The attack on Badr Baabou took place against a
backdrop of mounting abuses targeting LGBT activists by Tunisian security forces.
Baabou, the director of Damj Association for Justice and Equality, told Human Rights Watch that two men
ambushed him in downtown Tunis on October 21 at 9 p.m., as he was on his way home. One was wearing
an Internal Security Forces vest and the other was wearing police boots.[…]
The attackers took Baabou’s wallet, identification documents, mobile phone, and his work laptop, whichcontains confidential information about the organization’s beneficiaries. Damj and Baabou have filed
scores of complaints against the police on behalf of LGBT people who had been assaulted by security
forces since the organization was founded in 2005.[…]The assailants called Baabou by his full name, cursed him and his work on defending LGBT rights, andthreatened him with death, he said. On October 25, Baabou registered a complaint at the publicprosecutor’s office in Tunis First Instance Court, against the director general of national security, directorof the Tunis Region, and the two alleged officers.
Baabou’s medical report, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, states that he had a concussion andinjuries to his neck, rib cage, eye, and face from repeated punches and kicks. Baabou’s doctor said that heneeded monitoring for 15 days due to the severity of his injuries. The report says that he suffered multiple
hematomas, a 2–4-centimeter blunt force trauma to the head and forehead near his eye, as well as a
trauma to the rib cage.
Human Rights Watch has documented assaults, arrests, and home and office raids by security forces
against Tunisian LGBT activists every year since 2018, including raids on Baabou’s house and Damj’s
38
office.

Numerous media, such as Edge Media Network, also published an article on its website narrating theassault on Badr Baabou.39
2022
The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia about the criminalisation ofhomosexuality:
38
39

Human Rights Watch, Tunisia : Attack on Director of LGBT Group, 28 October 2021
Edge Media Network, Tunisia : LGBTQ Activist’s Assault by Police Seen as a Pattern, 10 December 2021

23

In May and June, police arrested 14 individuals on sodomy charges and 45 nonbinary individuals on
charges related to “public morality,” according to the Damj Association, an LGBTQI+ rights NGO. In thesecases, individuals reported being arrested based on perceptions concerning their appearance, innocent
displays of affections such as holding hands, and after self-identifying as LGBTQI+ to police. The Damj
Association reported some individuals were prosecuted and on conviction sentenced to between twomonths and one year in prison while other cases continued at the end of the year.

40

2023
In March 2023, the news agency France 24 published an article reporting about the arrest of LGBT subSaharan African refugees by Tunisian police forces in Tunis following the attack of their shelter by
Tunisian anti-gay vigilantes.41 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information wastranslated from French into English:
On the night of Thursday 23 February, a mob of men attacked the occupants of a home for refugees fromthe sub-Saharan LGBTQ community, in a district in the north of Tunis. Beatings, insults and stab wounds:
the residents of the hostel say they experienced a night of terror. Around thirty people, including at least
6 with United Nations refugee cards, were arrested that evening. A few days earlier, on Monday 20
February, another home for LGBT refugees was similarly attacked in a district of Tunis city centre.[…]The [France 24] Observateurs editorial team contacted several organisations fighting for LGBT rights in
Tunisia, but none of them had any information about the fate of the undocumented LGBT people arrested
on 23 February. Many migrants have no access to information about their rights. Not to mention the
42
climate in the LGBT and sub-Saharan community.

4. Mistreatment in Investigations
2020
In August 2020, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published an article on its website about the decision of theTunisian Appeals Court to uphold the conviction of two men accused of sodomy:
In June [2020], police arrested the men, both 26, on suspicion of same-sex conduct in Le Kef, a city 175
kilometers southwest of Tunis, after one of them filed a complaint against the other regarding an
outstanding loan. The first instance court in Le Kef sentenced both men on June 6 to two years in prison
for sodomy under article 230 of the penal code, which punishes consensual same-sex conduct with up to
three years in prison. The lower court’s decision, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, was based on the40

U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, pp. 30-31, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
41
France 24, In Tunis, two shelters for LGBT refugees from Subsaharan Africa attacked, 01 March 2023 [A Tunis,deux foyers de réfugiés LGBT subsahariens attaqués]42
France 24, In Tunis, two shelters for LGBT refugees from Subsaharan Africa attacked, 01 March 2023 [A Tunis,deux foyers de réfugiés LGBT subsahariens attaqués]24defendants’ alleged “confessions” during the police investigation to engaging in same-sex relations, which
both defendants repudiated before that court. […]Hassina Darraji, the lawyer who represented the men before the appeals court, said she brought to thecourt’s attention the defendants’ statements that the police bullied, insulted, and threatened them to getthem to confess to being gay, and attempted to persuade them to undergo an anal exam, purportedly totest for sodomy, which they refused. At the trial, Darraji said, the defendants pleaded not guilty to all
43
charges and refuted allegations related to their sexual orientation.

In December 2020, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), wrote
in its annual report on the rights of homosexuals and the criminalisation of homosexual acts across theglobe that in Tunisia, “convictions on the grounds of sodomy in Tunisia have reportedly been on the rise,with multiple cases in recent years of LGBT individuals being arrested, jailed, and made to undergo anal
examinations to find ‘proof’ of same-sex sexual conduct”.44
Reporting on digital media and internet freedom in the period from June 2020 to May 2021, Freedom
House wrote that in Tunisia “Digital evidence pulled from cell phones, laptops, or social media accounts
has been used in many cases to suppress and condemn LGBT+ people under Article 230 of the penal
code, which outlaws same-sex relations”.45
2021
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and found:
Police employ digital evidence to stack an Article 230 charge on top of one or more of these othercharges. In many cases, as mentioned by all the interviewees [6 Tunisian lawyers and one case worker] inboth Tunisia and Lebanon, the police don’t build a case in advance, but rather do so during theproceedings against, or investigations of, an individual. Following arrest, they take the opportunity to
conduct device searches and questioning related to an individual’s gender identity or sexuality. If digital
evidence or a confession can be obtained, an Article 230 count can be added to the case, which can thenlead to simultaneous charges in court. One researcher described this process as “an element of trial anderror, or mix and match, of seeing which article can create a sentence/lead to an arrest: it’s about gettinga verdict not about assessing the validity of a ‘crime’” and that “When they can’t use [Article] 230, theyuse [Article] 226. […] The goal for them is the punishment, you know. There is no not-guilty. There isalways, ‘You are guilty. We must [just] find the article.’”[TL5]108 This practice of cherry-picking different
articles with the end goal of a guilty verdict at trial is a process which appears to guide police decisionmaking from the moment they target a LGBTQ person for arrest. Alternatively, some members of Tunisianlaw enforcement have applied a technique where, in advance of an arrest, “they actually build something
so then when [queer people] are arrested for something else they have proof” for an Article 230 charge.

43

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia: Homosexuality Convictions Upheld, 5 August 2020
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), State-Sponsored Homophobia Global Legislation Overview Update 2020, December 2020, p. 124
45
Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2021 - Tunisia, 21 September 2021
44

25

Police build their advance cases by monitoring queer people on apps and tools, slowly compiling a file of46
the needed digital evidence.

The same source reported:
In Lebanon and Tunisia, the patterns of extraction are not just about evidence for court, but can be usedas leverage to gain a confession: “on the phone they look at WhatsApp conversations, that look at Grindr.
They look at all messaging apps. They look at photos. They look at the sexting specific...” and when they
get it “They either unofficially confront them with the evidence to extract a confession as I said, or they
actually mentioned [it] in the police report.

The same source further reported:
Lebanon and Tunisia have both officially banned the use of this practice; however, as confirmed in thisreport and more broadly, the threat of anal exams continues to be used against individuals. In Lebanon
and Tunisia, all interviewees [6 Tunisian lawyers and one case worker] point out that even with theaccused certified right to refuse anal exams, this refusal is used in court as a form of additional evidence,as it is framed as an admission of engaging in anal sex. In Tunisia, regardless of the legal wins on thisissues, one interview who was interviewed in October of 2020 mention that “the last [known] anal test
that has been used in one of the cases was May 9 of (2020).” The Lebanese interviews suggest that there
are indications to suggest the practice is still being conducted illegally.
A last important note regarding both anal tests and other types of non-digital evidence is how these are
now linked to digital evidence, either to create causality or as part of coercion tactics, or even to moveproceedings forward. An interviewee from Tunisia noted that, “if they find for example videos, photos,
etc. they will use those to push for an anal testing. If the anal testing is positive then obviously that
doesn’t go in their favor; if they refuse to do the anal testing then they would rule that because theyrefused it’s probably true then this is it.[…]In interrogations where the interrogators are looking to gather a confession by any means, it is no surprisethat digital evidence can and has played an important role in helping coerce confessions. The existence ofdigital evidence can be used to convince individuals that they are already convicted or play on their fears
of being outed by the police to their families. To gather confessions, Tunisia lawyers in particular havereported blackmail and threats of outings as well as the use or threat of physical violence. Interviewees in
Tunisia note that, “they harass them and they beat them even sometimes. Luckily the people he has
worked with, they wouldn’t confess but in general like it’s through violence and harassment that they47
actually get the confessions. […]””The same source also noted:
When such intimidation [when the police pressures arrested individuals into revealing their phone’s
password] is successful, the resulting search can be framed as consensual. “A lot of people [agree to thesearch] because they are afraid or under pressure, even being tortured” and thus give consent. This is46

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 33
47
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 131-132

26

subsequently hard to challenge in court because the “answer would simply be ‘but you gave the passcodeso you agreed’.” In the instances when someone refuses to cooperate, police can sometimes use workarounds. For example, if a person does not provide their password, on some phones the “phone can be
opened with his facial recognition. They just point it at his face, or try to use his finger to open it and soon.” Other coercive tactics may have more commonly included physical violence, but in Tunisia interviews
confirmed that with recent changes to legal rights of detainees, certain methods of torture have been
curtailed. “Now with 2016 law, it’s the law number 5 of 2016, they cannot violate the person. They cannot
hit him. But... before the [involvement] of the lawyer… they confiscate the phone.... You cannot reject it.
And in that time, they enter by force into the phone …[…]
After gaining access through coercion or other methods, investigators are free to take their time to makea case. Interviewees from Tunisia found that this gives police and prosecutors a tactical advantage, as“They go through … phones, through the conversations, through their profiles, and check all theconversations, all the content, video and photos and use these as proof,” and “They actually start building
a case on that. [This] sometimes gets them incriminated because sometimes they can find an irrefutable
proof and there’s nothing that can be done at this point.” For this, officers and prosecutors need to
identify the information relevant to building a successful care. A phone of any individual can havehundreds of chats, numerous apps, thousands of photos: “if they are sure that this person is homosexualand they don’t find any proof or any applications, special [queer] applications, they try to search in everysocial platform, you know to find and extract some proof.” They focus in on certain applications:
Facebook, WhatsApp, queer dating apps and the phone’s own photo galleries and text message archives.
“They [search for] sexting in specific.” Web browsing and search history may also be checked, with anemphasis on finding pornography.[…]While police and prosecutors will ultimately need to verify the validity of the evidence to the court, one
lawyer explained a common way around this: “They show the digital evidence for example photos, andthey make the apprehended [person] sign and approve of them.” 280 This provides an impression ofvalidity to the search process.[…]Similarly in Tunisia, accused persons have de jure rights. “And you know that those things are protectedby the personal data laws. And it’s illegal to search phones so…the person who is arrested has the right toremain silent and has a right to not give his phone in order to be searched.” In reality, however, “Theytake the phone by force. Especially in Tunisia… we are Facebook people... They force them to open their
Facebook and they look at it and see all the conversations and all your private life, [as if] it’s their life.”.
Such misconduct by public officials is especially common in LGBTQ cases. 8 out of the 9 Tunisian cases
reviewed had illegal searches, through which evidence was added to the files. It should be noted,
however, that officers often gain permission to engage in searches and acquire evidence after the legal
48
window for warranted searches has closed.

Regarding “police stations and opportunistic prosecutions”, the same report stated:
A very common path to prosecute for LGBTQ individuals in Lebanon and Tunisia leads through unrelated
contact with the authorities, such as reporting a crime or being involved in another case underinvestigation. When investigators, prosecutors or police get access to the individual’s device and thedigital evidence on it, they’re able to start creating a case based on the individual’s sexual or gender
identity.
48

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 67-68-69-70-72

27

The danger of police stations and that abuses that occur therein are an overarching theme in every
interview conducted in Tunisia and Lebanon. Interviewees emphasized that this is one of the main ways
individuals are at risk of prosecution based on their gender identity. A Tunisian lawyer said, “Once you are
there you can’t quit, you are condemned even before you go to the court. It’s as if [the police station] was
the court.” Data from the case files supports such statements. Surprisingly, given the extensive andseemingly arbitrary nature of arrests and prosecutions in Egypt, the research efforts did not find muchevidence of the use of this method in that country.
Through interrogations and device searches at police stations and precincts, queer people who interactedwith the arrested or questioned individual may be identified. An interviewee indicated that “[there are]people who were caught and then spoke about other people so the [others] got arrested or [the police
found] texts were from them where they were identified, so they went ahead and arrested these49
people”.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that the testimonies gathered during his visit“paint a consistent and disturbing picture”:
Sanctioning real or presumed gender identities and non-normative sexual orientations (based on gender
expression, mannerism, etc.)
Violation of privacy: searches and confiscations of computers, mobile phones to look for "evidence" ofhomosexuality or other offences related to morality or modesty; seizure of condoms and lubricant as"proof" of the same offences.
Verbal and physical abuse by law enforcement officials against arrested LGBT people.
Tests ordered by the judiciary to prove homosexuality.[…]The information available to [him] also indicates an almost systematic use of the practice of anal testing
to prove homosexual relations, in violation of international texts relating to the prevention of torture andin complete inadequacy with the scientific data on the probative value of this test and the negative
impact on the persons subjected to it. [He] note[s] with astonishment the confusion between the tests
50
carried out to prove sexual assault and those carried out in order to prove supposed homosexuality.[…]In particular, anal tests are an abhorrent practice, internationally recognized as torture. I am not in aposition to accept that the current practice of requiring the consent of the victim validates this heinous
act, for many reasons. One of them is the fact that, in practice, the refusal to accept this test is considereda presumption of guilt – which in itself creates coercion. But, more importantly, we must accept the logic
that the test has no probative value: there is a scientific consensus that it is unable to provide valid
evidence. In practice, its use is seen as a threat to obtain confessions, blackmail and suffering. Like anyother form of torture, the continuity of testing in cases of suspected homosexuality is the responsibility of

49

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 82, 85-86
50
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021, Institutional violence28the State and should be the subject of criminal proceedings against the perpetrator of the torture and the51
requesting authority.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung wrote in its 2022 country report about Tunisia that:
According to human rights organizations, dozens of detainees have reported torture and other illtreatment by law enforcement. Often, the authorities have also denied detainees their right to call alawyer or relative. Using Article 230 of the penal code, authorities prosecuted and imprisoned presumedgay men for “sodomy.” In this context, the discredited procedure of anal testing to “prove” homosexual
conduct has continued, even though the government accepted a U.N. Human Rights Council
52
recommendation in May 2017 to end the practice.

The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia about state violence against
LGBTQI+ Persons:Authorities and medical officials continued the practice of forced anal examinations, particularly for gay
men, in purported attempts to gather evidence of same-sex sexual activity. Human rights organizations
widely criticized the procedures as invasive, humiliating, and with no scientific value, but there is no
prohibition against them under the law. According to NGO Lawyers without Borders, an individual wasforced to undergo an anal examination after an accusation of homosexuality.

53

The same source indicated on the subject of restrictions of freedom of expression, association, or
peaceful assembly that “Activists and media reported police harassed, arbitrarily detained, assaulted,
and threatened LGBTQI+ protesters during the year. Some of those subjected were also prevented
access to legal counsel”.54
In August 2022, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) published information on Tunisia compiled for theWorking Group on the Universal Periodic Review and summarised:
5. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons
46. The Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity recommended that Tunisia legally
recognize the gender identity of trans persons; ensure the successful execution of the specific actions
identified by the National Authority for the Prevention of Torture to strengthen the capacity of staff indetention centres and shelters, in order to prevent torture and ill-treatment; promote, in addition to theirpolitical recognition, the recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons through the51

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021, Recommendations
52
Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2022 Country Report - Tunisia, 24 January 2022, p. 13
53
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, p. 31, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
54
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, p. 32, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics

29

adoption, in all government institutions, of initiatives aimed at documenting the issues faced by these
persons; and systematically follow up on allegations of hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, andtransgender persons and consider adopting differentiated approaches to ensure that such allegations
were properly investigated.
47. The Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity and the Human Rights Committee
recommended that Tunisia repeal article 230 of the Criminal Code, provide law enforcement officials withtraining on respect for diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, recognize associations for theprotection of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons, and prohibit intrusive
medical examinations that have no medical justification. The United Nations country team made similar
55
recommendations.

A week later in August 2022, the Tunisian state responded to the Working Group on the Universal
Periodic Review:“E. Combating discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (125.48)”:
172. The purpose of rectal examinations is not to find evidence of homosexuality or to determine anindividual’s sexual orientation. The examination is conducted on all victims as being the only way to provesexual assault through anal penetration.
173. Under article 230 of Criminal Code, such examinations are conducted only with the consent of theperson concerned, and there is no presumption that the person has perpetrated an offence. The forensic
doctor must respect the will of the individual in question or is liable to disciplinary or criminal proceedings
under the Code of Medical Ethics.
174. Tunisia wishes to recall that it voted in favour of the 2019 Human Rights Council resolution on the
renewal of the mandate of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination
based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Independent Expert then visited Tunisia in June
56
2021, the first visit of its kind in the region.

76 crimes published an article in March 2023 relaying the Tunisian LGBT+ rights group Damj’s “Queer
state of Emergency”:
Damj said its emergency hotlines “are being frighteningly showered with requests for urgent legal
interventions day and night.”
The Tunisian LGBT+ rights group Damj has issued a “Queer State of Emergency” in response to a barrageof raids targeting LGBT+ people that was launched by Tunisia’s Ministry of the Interior.
The crackdown began with a raid on the homes of three trans women on Feb. 13, Damj said. It hascontinued with unconstitutional arrests and other human rights abuses, including torture, forced57
confessions and denial of detainees’ right to an attorney.

ii. Treatment in Detention Facilities

55

UN Human Rights Council (HRC), Tunisia – Compilation of information prepared by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 22 August 2022, p. 8
56
Tunisia, State report to the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, 29 August 2022, p. 17
57
76crimes, Anti-LGBT raids in Tunisia create ‘Queer state of Emergency’, 3 March 2023

30

In March 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported about the arrest of LGBTQI activist Rania Amdouni
the same month, preceded by months of harassment by police officers:
Hanchiri [Amdouni’s lawyer] spoke to Amdouni, who told him that at the Manouba women’s prison
where she is detained, women prison guards have repeatedly entered her cell at night while she wassleeping, insulted her using derogatory language relating to her sexual orientation and gender expression,
58
and threatened her for attempting to complain about the police, he said.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
In practice, prison authorities and officers recognize that homosexual men are part of the prison
population and also include trans women in that population. I was able to visit the largest prison in the
country and observe the differentiated approach taken for homosexual men. As in any other state
institution, the criminalization of homosexuality has a very concrete impact on the enjoyment of rights:
for example, I have been informed that prison authorities do not distribute and allow the distribution of
condoms in prison because this would be considered an act of promoting homosexuality – which is
criminalized. This practice worries me greatly in view of the HIV prevalence rate of 9.1% in Tunisia among
MSM and the reality of same-sex sex intercourse in detention, confirmed in a report by the United
Nations Population Fund which revealed that 72.7% of trans people who said they had been in prison had
59
had sexual intercourse during the period of incarceration.

76 crimes published an article in April 2023, based on information by the organisations All Out and Damj
about the conditions in detention of a Tunisian trans-woman arrested in December 2022:
Maya, a Tunisian trans woman, has been released from prison after more than 32,000 people signed an
online petition demanding her release.[…]“In December 2022, Maya, a trans woman from Tunisia, was arrested with four other individuals. She wassentenced to six months of jail under article 230 of the Tunisian penal code, criminalizing same-sex
relationships, and put in a detention center for men.[…]She was harassed, intimidated and denied access to an attorney, and her hair was forcibly shaved off in60
prison, Damj said.

iii. Prosecutions and convictions under laws that are deployed against
the LGBTQI+ community
2020

58

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia : Harassment, Arbitrary Detention of LGBT Rights Activists, 9 March 2021
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021, Persons deprived of their liberty
60
76crimes, Tunisia frees trans woman serving a 6-month sentence for whom she loves, 27 April 2023
59

31

In a report published in December 2021, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex
Association (ILGA) reported on laws criminalising same-sex sexual relationships, and listed examples ofthe enforcement of such laws during the year 2020:
On 3 June 2020 police arrested two men in el-Kef when one laid an unrelated complaint against the other,and authorities looking into the case realised they were gay. The prosecutor of the Kef First Instance
Tribunal charged the men with sodomy, and on 6 June they were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
On 28 July an appeals court upheld their conviction, but reduced the sentence to one year in prison.
In July 2020 a judge handed down a prison sentence to two men suspected of being gay for their refusal
tosubmit to an anal examination, ruling that their refusal constituted “sufficient evidence” that the “crime”
of same-sex sexual activity had been committed.
On 5 August 2020 a trans man—the founder of local advocacy group OutCast—and other trans activists
were stopped near the French Embassy and asked to show their IDs. When police officers realised themismatch between the activist’s gender expressions and their identity documents, they began to verbally
abuse and beat the group. More police officers arrived, only to further inflict violence, and called upon
bystanders to assist in harming the group, shouting “kill them, they are sodomites”. The trans man was
refused service at two hospitals and told to go to a local women’s hospital, where he was also initiallyrejected for looking like a man before being given minimal medical assistance.
On 22 December 2020 police broke into the home of a local activist and allegedly searched forcompromising material. The same day, another activist from the local SOGI advocacy organisation called
Damj, was picked up by police and violently interrogated for three hours to force him to disclose
information on the activities undertaken by Damj. Damj alleges that such targeting is common, with theiroffices in Sfax being burgled in 2019 and police constantly monitoring the place. The head of Damj notedin February 2021 that his home had been ransacked four times since 2018. On 18 January 2021 a memberof Damj was arrested for raising their middle finger to the police during a peaceful protest, and charged
with “insulting a police officer” and “committing an immoral act in public”. After three days in
61
Bouchoucha Detention Center the activist was released pending trial.

The French-speaking Newspaper Courrier International wrote an article about an “administrative
mistake” resulting in the recognition of a same-sex marriage by a Tunisian court in May 2020. Using an
online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information was translated from French into English:
It sounded like a victory for Tunisian homosexuals. On 24 April, the Shams association, which fights for the
decriminalisation of homosexuality, announced that a Franco-Tunisian gay couple married in France had
succeeded in having their union registered on the Tunisian national's birth certificate. This was a first.
Since then, however, the Tunisian authorities have insisted that it was a "mistake" by a municipal official.
Relayed by the main news websites in Tunisia, the announcement has caused controversy, as reported byBusiness News. "For some, even talking about it is nothing short of heresy. Some have strongly
condemned the media coverage of the news, [especially as it came] on the first day of the month of
Ramadan", writes the independent site.
The president of the Shams association, Mounir Baatour, refused to reveal the identity of the newlyweds
or the name of the municipality that tacitly recognised the gay marriage, but Nawaat managed to consult
the birth certificate of the 26-year-old Tunisian. "It clearly states that [he] married a Frenchman",

61

International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), Our Identities under Arrest,
December 2021, pp. 111-112

32

confirms the news website, which was also keen to guarantee the anonymity of the bride and groom so as
62
not to compromise their safety.

In May 2020, the online media RightsAfrica, an initiative of the African Human Rights Media Network,
published an article titled “Same-sex marriage is still illegal in Tunisia!”, echoing a message of a coalitionof thirty-five LGBTQ+ and human rights groups reacting to erroneous media reports about an alleged
recognition of a same-sex marriage by the Tunisian authorities.63 The article explained that:
The false belief began spreading in late April after the Tunisian LGBTQ+ rights group Shams posted on
Facebook that the French marriage of French man and a Tunisian man had been registered in Tunisia.
That bureaucratic action apparently was either a mistake or a misunderstanding, but it led to news
coverage implying a change in Tunisia’s position on same-sex marriage. The misimpression was conveyed
by headlines and articles in many publications […]Despite the news that has been circulating across news platforms and social media lately, same-sex
marriage is still illegal and not recognized in Tunisia, regardless of where the marriage has occurred.
We urge journalists, allies, and other organizations to stop sharing this misinformation and to get
64
information and news from reliable sources and from activists who are in touch with the situation.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also reported on the case of Kef (see ILGA report above) in its annual reporton the human rights situation in 2020 in Tunisia:
On June 6, the Kef First Instance Tribunal sentenced two men charged with sodomy to two years in prison,
reduced to one year on appeal. The men had refused police’s demands to subject them to an anal exam,
an invasive and discredited practice that Tunisian authorities routinely use to “prove” homosexual65
conduct.

The online media RightsAfrica published an article in August 2020 about the decision of an appeal court
to uphold the conviction of the two men sentenced by the Kef First Instance Tribunal:
A Tunisian appeals court let stand the sodomy conviction of two men who ended up in police custody inJune when they had a falling out over a loan. Activists protested the decision as a violation of the men’shuman rights.[…]
Hassina Darraji, the lawyer who represented the men before the appeals court, said she brought to thecourt’s attention the defendants’ statements that the police bullied, insulted, and threatened them to getthem to confess to being gay, and attempted to persuade them to undergo an anal exam, purportedly totest for sodomy, which they refused. At the trial, Darraji said, the defendants pleaded not guilty to all
charges and refuted allegations related to their sexual orientation.[…]62

Courrier International, Homosexuality. In Tunisia, an administrative "error" makes a gay marriage official for the
first time, 05 May 2020 [Homosexualité. En Tunisie, une « erreur » administrative officialise pour la première fois
un mariage gay]63
See RightsAfrica, Same-sex marriage is still illegal in Tunisia!, May 2020
64
RightsAfrica, Same-sex marriage is still illegal in Tunisia!, May 2020
65
Human Rights Watch (HRW), World Report 2021 - Tunisia, 13 January 2021

33

The two defendants in the current case petitioned the Court of Cassation, the highest instance court in
Tunisia, to review their conviction. Damj said that this is the first time a sodomy case has reached the66
country’s cassation court.

2021
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and found:On average, the interviewees [6 Tunisian lawyers and one case worker] mention working on 7-10 cases
each year. Interviewees in Tunisia estimate a total of 40 -100 court cases on 230 charges per year basedon their experiences, with the highest number of cases in Sousse. The numbers and the trajectory takenby these cases have charged (sic) throughout the years, and this has also affected statistical accuracy. For
example, one interviewee noted that, “Article 230 wasn’t used as much before [...] before the revolution,
LGBT revolution in Tunisia, was something unspoken of and most of the time even if they arrested
someone who was gay they would find any other article to use rather than Article 230 to kind of preserve
their ‘dignity or privacy’.” They continued by noting that current case scenarios are very different, as “it’svery new that it’s being used this much and now there are around a hundred cases per year [under Article230].” These conditions lead to increasing numbers of court cases: the NGO Shams reported that in May
of 2021, statistics from Tunisia’s Ministry of Justice had been released which showed that 1225 people
had been jailed due to their sexual and gender identities since 2011, thus providing fficial statistics onthese cases. The decade of official statistics is seemingly half that of the Tunisia interviewees’ self67
reporting of approximately 230 court cases per year.

The same source reported:
One interviewee [among 6 Tunisian lawyers and one case workers participating in the study] had
conducted a base-line assessment of this for the summer of 2020, and stated, “If we just based on thepast three months of summer from the investigation, the early investigation, data investigation until
actually getting to the courts the biggest population that has been targeted recently is trans people.”
Queer cis men in Tunisia are also at risk if they fail to fit into heteronormative conceptions of masculinity.
“Most targeted… gay men, trans women, etc. Well for me it’s all the LGBTQ community but especiallygays and trans persons due to their apparent effeminacy.” Police use visual identifiers for this, where
judgement of effeminacy is because of the “outfit, or based on how they speak, how they behave””
However, of the three countries, Tunisia is the only country in which cases against cis women werementioned. One interviewer wrote that “most of the cases are actually gay men, like once in a while ortwice a case of women —well like cases of two women— but most of the time it has always been gay men
who are more persecuted.” Another interviewee observed that there has been an increase in the68
targeting of cisgendered queer women in the country […]”

66

Rights Africa, On appeal, Tunisian court imposes 1-year prison term for gay sex, 6 August 2020
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 28-29
68
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 47-48
67

34

The same source further noted on the role of digital evidence in prosecutions:
It is fundamental to understand how authorities use digital evidence in conjunction with other evidence
to push through prosecutions. The report shows linking digital evidence with other types of evidence,
especially confessions, produces the highest rates of conviction and the most stringent sentences. Digital
evidence reduced the workload for prosecutors, police and investigators: they need only gather a picture,69
app or a video from a phone to make a case.

Elaborating on the type of digital material that the police considers to be a proof, the same source
reported that:In Tunisia, similar messages with a friendly context have been used in court, and the prosecution has
implied that friendliness is coextensive with queerness. “I remember,” one lawyer shared, “that there
were some screenshots of discussions, of messages like, ‘I like you.’ Even it’s not sexual or even it’s not aninvitation to sex… Even messages [that are] emotional I would say, emotional messages, etc., areinterpreted like ‘This is the identity. This is what you want. And we can prove that you are a homosexual.’
You know, this is the logic behind this.” In Case T3 [Tunisian lawyer interviewed for the study], thelawyer’s notes in the case file notes stated that:“While searching the accused phone, the police agent found the following applications: messenger
application, tinder, and the gallery of pictures. By searching them, no precise proof of sexual offer formoney was found. Nevertheless, some discussions on messenger that barely could be considered as
flirting with men were found. Messages such as ‘you look beautiful’ and ‘you are charming’, and ‘I likeyou’.[…]MISPLACED TRUST IN DIGITAL EVIDENCE
Digital evidence is described in some interviews as “hard evidence.” Lawyers in each country explained
the difficulty in challenging evidence that is seen as so accurate and so incriminating by judges orprosecutors. There is a conflation between the existence of digital evidence for one thing—same-sex
attraction or conduct associated with the LGBTQ community—and proof, which is required by these laws,of the actual physical sexual acts themselves. “It’s hard to dispute the digital evidence in general in frontof the judge or in front of the prosecutor because it is hard evidence, they have it in their hands [...] they
have the phone, so it is very clear that this evidence does exist.” Tunisian interviewees talk about how
they try to bring constitutional and procedural challenges to the use of this type of evidence in court, but
due to the perceived power of digital evidence, this is often impossible. “You try and ask them to not
admit it because of privacy basically, confidentiality, etc. and all the other laws, it’s very hard for them toactually not take it into consideration, because it’s also a kind of a proof that is irrefutable.”[…]
Screenshots are generally defined as a visual information capture of all or a selected part of what is seen
on a screen and may be taken from either the phone of the accused or an informant. They can beproduced through a built-in function of most phones and laptops, and offer a low-tech method to create
hard evidence for court proceedings. Screenshots are significant in evidence-gathering and are frequently
presented in court by prosecuting teams. They are popular because they are wrongly viewed as
irrefutable and concrete, and have a visceral impact on judges. They are also an alternative to technicaldata extraction of the evidence, which may be required by the laws of evidence but in practice, might not
be enforced:
69

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 102

35

“Under the criminal procedure law, in order to have the evidence included in the case they need atechnical expert to collect the evidence, and to prove that the evidence do belong to the person. And
since the [app users] usually use a fake name and don’t use their [real] names on dating apps so
70
essentially you can’t relate these screenshots to the person himself”.

The same source further reported:
A search may also start with the phone’s gallery, since visual cues may be easier for officers to quickly
assess. When something turns up, they dive deeper: in Tunisia, “They look for everything, the application
for the camera first, first the camera and then other applications.” As another Tunisian lawyer described
it: “First thing they do obviously they go into the photos and try to find photos and videos; [then] they gothrough conversations; they open the conversations hoping to find something; and now since they started
71
knowing about Grindr, [...] they go into Grindr”.

The same source reported about technical evidence from other sources than the phone of the suspect:
As noted in the section on Gathering Digital Evidence, investigation tactics are generally low-tech andfocus on material directly available on a digital device during a search. However, interviewees in Tunisia
reported participating in cases that included information gathered from national telecommunications
service providers. This was also mentioned in one interview in Lebanon. In these instances, the telephonelogs are used to connect the accused to other individuals. One interviewee explained: “I’ve seen in thefiles listings of… the different calls that go between two different phones [in a case].” There was noevidence of successful requests for data as introduced by social media, dating app, or messenger, andchat-based application companies. This is not to suggest that such requests have not been made, but72rather that they were not reported in either the studied cases or by the interviewees.

In March 2021, Amnesty International reported on the arrest of a prominent LGBTI rights activist thesame month (on this case, see also section II. Treatment by State Actors):
On 27 February [2021], Rania Amdouni went to a police station to file a complaint about the continuous
harrassement she has faced from the police in relation to her LGBTI activism and her participation inprotests against police violence and deteriorating socio-economic conditions. Instead of registering her
complaint, she was arrested. […]According to Rania Amdouni’s lawyer, when police officers at the Septième police station in downtown
Tunis turned her away, she left – distraught – and began shouting in the street, swearing at the police.
Police officers then arrested her and held her at a detention centre for two days.
On 1 March, without being questioned or given the right to challenge her detention, Rania Amdouni wasformally charged with “insulting a public officer while he was carrying out his duties,” punishable by up to
one year in prison under Article 125 of the Penal Code. She was also charged with “causing
embarrassment and disruption,” and “visible drunkenness.”

70

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 106-107-108
71
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 115
72
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 110

36

On 4 March, the District Court of Tunis convicted her on all three charges and took her into custody. She is73
currently imprisoned at the Manouba women’s prison in Tunis.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on the same events in its World Report 2022 as follows:
On March 4 [2021], a Tunis court sentenced Rania Amdouni, a queer and feminist activist, to six months inprison and a fine for “insulting a public officer during the performance of his duty, “causing
embarrassment and disruption,” and “apparent drunkenness.” Police arrested Amdouni on February 27
for shouting outside a police station, after officers had refused to register her complaint relating torepeated harassment to which she said police officers had subjected her on the street and online. On
March 17, the Court of Appeal in Tunis upheld her conviction and suspended her prison sentence. After74
her release, Amdouni obtained asylum in France.

The online media Rights Africa also published an article about the release of LGBT rights activist Rania
Amdouni in March 2021:
A Tunisia court ordered the release Wednesday of Rania Amdouni, the women’s rights defender and
LGBTI activist who had been jailed for shouting at police.[…]Her release was welcomed by the activist groups Solidarité Internationale LGBTQI (SIL) and theCommittee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Tunisia (CRLDHT).
In a joint statement, they said that Amdouni’s sentence had been reduced to a fine of 200 dinars (6175
euros). They gave credit to quick action by supporters demanding Amdouni’s release.

In December 2021, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)
published a report on laws criminalising same-sex sexual relationships and wrote about the enforcementof criminalising provisions in Tunisia:
ILGA World notes 30 individual examples of criminal enforcement, police harassment, and other forms ofofficial State-backed targeting between 2012 and 2021. These represent only a few disaggregated cases,
however, with some organisations putting forward much higher numbers.
In 2020, a Tunisian organisation called Damj reportedly provided legal assistance to LGBT people at police
stations in 116 cases and responded to 185 requests for legal consultations. “These figures are five times
higher than those we recorded in 2019, indicating an alarming increase in the persecution of LGBT people
76
during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said one member of the organisation.

The same source listed examples of enforcement of laws used to criminalise LGBTQI Tunisians:

73

Amnesty International (AI), Tunisia: Release prominent LGBTI rights activist jailed for insulting police, 16 March
2021
74
Human Rights Watch (HRW), World Report 2022 – Tunisia, 13 January 2022
75
Rights Africa, Tunisian court releases LGBT rights activist Rania Amdouni, 18 March 2021
76
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), Our Identities under Arrest,
December 2021, p. 108

37

On 23 January 2021 an activist was detained by police after leaving a meeting, verbally abused andphotographed before being released. During a later protest he was outed online with the photo police
hadtaken and his personal details were made public, which led him to flee the country for fear of further
targeting from security forces. He had previously spent three months in prison in 2018 on charges of“sodomy”.
On 8 February 2021 a 23-year-old queer activist was detained during the ongoing anti-government
protests
and taken to an undisclosed location, with no access to a lawyer. He was repeatedly beaten by an official
who said “we’ll keep you here for 10 years, and your torture will be our duty”. After 10 days in an
overcrowded cell in Mornag Prison he was given a five-month suspended sentence by the First Instance
Tribunal in Tunis.
On 9 February 2021 a transgender man was picked up by police after attending a press conference andseverely beaten. When they also saw his ID and the difference between his legal identity and his gender
expression, they further abused and ridiculed him, then took him to a local police station where otherofficers present were encouraged to kick and beat him too. He managed to get up and flee the scene.
Another activist was arrested on 27 February 2021 when she went to a police station in Tunis to lay acomplaint about the threats and harassment she had faced from members of the security forces. She wasarrested for “insulting a public official”, “abuse of morals”, and “apparent drunkenness” and sentenced to
six months in prison under Article 125 of the Penal Code. She was released by an Appeals Court and her
sentence was reduced to a 200 dinar (USD 72) fine, after the advocacy of Damj, and widespreadinternational outcry. Several UN Special Procedures also wrote to Tunisian officials to decry this and otherarrests.
In early March 2021 an activist working for Damj was targeted by an unknown person, who phoned his
landlord to say that if he was not evicted immediately, then both the landlord and the activist would faceprosecution. It is not clear if this was a case of targeting from a State actor, or one of many cases ofextrajudicial targeting and harassment this activist is said to have faced.
On 5 June 2021 it was reported that National Security Police in Nasr District raided, with the backing ofthePublic Prosecutor, an apartment believed to be used for “secret prostitution and sodomy”. Fourindividuals were allegedly “caught in the act” and arrested.
On 21 October 2021 the head of Damj was severely beaten by two men identifying themselves as police.
While being assaulted, the attackers told him “this happens to those who insult the police and make acomplaint”, and stole his valuables. He was not arrested or charged, and thus this incident is not includedin the tally of cases in the Enforcement Overview above, though he required more than two weeks of77
close monitoring from doctors as a result of his injuries.

In its 2021 Country Report on Tunisia, the US Department of State listed arrests of LGBTQI Tunisians that
occurred during the year:
On January 8, police arrested Zizi, a transgender woman, and four other transgender individuals on
charges of public indecency and disturbing public morality. The Damj Association issued a statement on
January 12 condemning thearrests and calling for the release of Zizi and other LGBTQI+ individuals in detention. The organization
noted police officers denied Zizi access to a lawyer despite her request. On January 23, the First Instance
Court of Sousse released all five individuals and dropped all charges against them.

77

International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), Our Identities under Arrest,
December 2021, pp. 111-112

38

After self-described queer activist Rania Amdouni participated in antigovernment protests in January andFebruary, some police unions posted photographs of her on Facebook groups and called for her arrest. On
February 27, Amdouni went to a police station in downtown Tunis to press charges against members of
the security forces she claimed harassed and followed her. Police arrested her after she reportedly had averbal altercation with a police officer at the station. On March 4, a Tunis court sentenced her to six
months in prison for insulting a public servant.
Amdouni’s supporters held a small protest outside of the Tunis court, and civil society organizations
denounced her arrest and called for her release. On March 17, the Appeals Court of Tunis fined Amdouni
200 dinars ($75) and ordered her release. On June 24, she announced her departure from the country toseek asylum
in France.
On March 22, Damj Association president Badr Baabou reported that four unidentified individuals
physically assaulted him on March 10, targeting him for his LGBTQI+ rights advocacy. According to Damj,
police officers in a vehicle approximately 65 feet away failed to respond to the physical assault or verbal
harassment. Baabou filed a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office against his assailants and the
security officials who allegedly did not intervene.
According to the Damj Association, Baabou was assaulted again, this time by two police officers in
downtown Tunis, October 21. According to public reports, the officers struck Baabou with multiple blows
to his body and face. The government did not publicly comment on the case. On December 1, theNational Police general inspector opened an investigation into the case and requested Damj’s assistancein collecting documents and statements related to reports of police abuse.
On October 26, the First Instance Court of Tunis sentenced the president of LGBTQI+-rights group Shams
Association, Mounir Baatour, in absentia to one year in prison for a 2019 Facebook post that allegedly
expressed “contempt of the Prophet.” Baatour has been residing outside Tunisia since 2019 after78
reportedly receiving death threats.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterward that:
A large part of Tunisian legislation is not in conformity with the 2014 Constitution and international andregional instruments for the protection of human rights, in particular article 230 of the Penal Code, which
criminalizes anal penetration, and the section of the Penal Code entitled "attacks on morals", whichcontains article 226 bis, which penalizes without really defining it "offences against good morals or publicmores by gesture or word" and article 226 which penalizes "public indecency". According to [his]information, however, these articles allow the judiciary and the security forces to prosecute and convict
people on the basis of their mere non-normative appearance or what could be associated with behaviour
suggesting homosexuality or by having access to information relating to their personal data. The criminal
treatment of these cases seems to reflect a moral judgment of the facts rather than a legal judgment, and78

U.S. Department of State, 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Tunisia, 03 March 2022, pp. 32-33,
Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or
Sex Characteristics

39

when they apply article 230 judges often argue their decision with moral statements and arguments
79
aimed at recalling social order and social roles.[…]

The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and noted:
Although clothing is frequently mentioned, especially in cases in which the accused is a trans person,
make-up and gold jewellery are also regularly mentioned. Broadly anything deemed not to fall in-line withpatriarchal and heteronormative frameworks. The use of these types of evidence is very common
especially if there are prostitution charges included. In the case files, 4 of the Egyptian cases, 4 of theTunisian cases, and 2 of the Lebanese cases included clothing and jewellery items as part of their casefiles.
Condoms and lubricants are generally known to be used by all types of couples and folks having sex,
regardless of sexuality, but are very often used to suggest anal sex or sodomy, and have therefore led tocriminal charges in each of these three countries. In Tunisia, the interviewees [6 Tunisian lawyers and one
case worker] have noted that even something as inconspicuous as a logo of an LGBTQ organisation on alaptop has been used as evidence as proof the defendant is part of the queer community: “theyconsidered it as a piece of proof, you know, that you… as like you belong to this community and that you
are homosexual, so you are convicted.” As occurred with digital evidence, these pieces of physicalevidence help enhance the narrative of LGBTQ sexuality, rather than related to any evidentiary
requirement under the elements of each crime in each country. One of the lawyers interviewed reflectedon this process and its inherent flaws, noting that: “I showed up one time to make a point, because when
you hear that for the very first time it’s extremely annoying. I said, ‘you said that this is a conditional
80
evidence of a crime’ I got [this condom] from the pharmacy outside of here”.

2022
In February 2023, Amnesty International published news about the prosecution of two individualsarrested in December 2022. Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information wastranslated from French into English:
On 21 December, the Court of First Instance in Grombalia sentenced a transgender woman to three years
in prison and a gay man to one year. Ten days earlier, the El Gorjani judicial police raided a residence inHammamet and arrested eight people on suspicion of homosexual relations. According to lawyer Safouen
Jouili, they were questioned without legal assistance. Two of them were charged under article 230 of theTunisian Penal Code, which criminalises consensual same-sex relations and carries a maximum sentence
81of three years' imprisonment. The others were released for lack of evidence.
79

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity – Institutional violence, 18 June 2021
80
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 129
81
Amnesty International (AI), Tunisia. Prison sentences against two LGBTI people must be overturned, February
2023 [Tunisie. Les peines d’emprisonnement prononcées contre deux personnes LGBTI doivent être annulées]

40

January – May 2023
Amnesty International wrote in its International Report on Human Rights that in the reporting period2022/2023, based on information provided by the Damj, a Tunisian rights group that defends LGBTI
rights, “courts tried people under Article 230 in at least 47 separate cases”.82
76 crimes published an article in April 2023 about the release of a Tunisian trans-woman arrested in
December 2022:
Maya, a Tunisian trans woman, has been released from prison after more than 32,000 people signed an
online petition demanding her release.[…]All Out stated :“When thousands of people come together, they can truly make a difference.
“In December 2022, Maya, a trans woman from Tunisia, was arrested with four other individuals. She wassentenced to six months of jail under article 230 of the Tunisian penal code, criminalizing same-sex
83
relationships, and put in a detention center for men.

In January 2023 the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) reported based on press
articles that:As reported in press articles, an appeals court ruled on 02.01.23 that the prosecution of a queer activist in ahigh-profile LGBTIQ case was legally flawed. The NGO Damj (Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality),
which is involved in the queer community, and a judiciary spokesperson stated that the charges had been
dropped due to a procedural error. The case dates back to 2015, when six students were charged with84
sodomy, sentenced to three years in prison and banned from the Kairouan region.

II.

Treatment by State Actors
a. Public statements by government officials

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported that:
Several interlocutors noted that the liberation of speech following the revolution and the rise ofconservative and populist movements has led to an increase in hate speech and incitement to violenceagainst women, LGBT people and people with beliefs that do not conform to the majority belief. This
discourse feeds on the very deteriorated economic and social situation as well as the health crisis caused
82

Amnesty International (AI), International Report 2022/2023, 14 April 2023, p. 368
76crimes, Tunisia frees trans woman serving a 6-month sentence for whom she loves, 27 April 2023
84
German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Briefing Notes, 9 January 2023, p. 1083

41

by COVID-19. Politicians, parliamentarians, clerics, and the media tend to project a stereotypical,
stigmatizing, and negative image of LGBT people that fuels hatred and intolerance within society, as
illustrated by homophobic messages and death threats exchanged in discussion groups in connection withthe above-mentioned speeches and representations.[…]
The absence of legal sanctions [against harassment on social media], coupled with the fact that many
officials and politicians, including members of the Tunisian parliament, contribute to hostile rhetoric
against the LGBT community, has led to the large-scale normalization of homophobic hate speech acrossthe country. Tunisian law leaves limited options for victims of hate crimes, including crimes against theLGBT community. While attacks can be punished as "assault" or "homicide", Tunisia's penal code does not85
contain any provisions specifically defining or criminalizing hate crimes against LGBT people.

In June 2022, Euronews published an article in French about a theatre play co-produced by the LGBT
rights association Mawjoudin.86 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information
was translated from French into English: “Tunisian President Kais Saied, who has held all powers since
his coup on 25 July 2021, is opposed to the decriminalisation of homosexuality, while speaking out
against imprisonment”.87

b. Homophobia and transphobia in government institutions (incl. stateowned media, within the police, in the prison service, in the judiciary)
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and found with regards toTunisia:
The Tunisian police are not allowed to use fake profiles, and when one lawyer asserted that they had,
“They denied it.” This makes mounting a defense problematic, as, “in our penal system the lawyer cannot
do the search [...] we cannot have access to the profiles. All the work is done by the police so our work is
so hard to [prove] that it’s [through] a fake profile.” Of course, this means that the police can sometimes
fabricate or obscure details of their investigation: “In the police report they are not really clear, I mean, inthe police report they try to hide that part of the story. So they make it just as, there is a person who
88reported to the police that there is a homosexual, etc”.

For more information see also section II., c. Violence and d. Online harassment.

85

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021, Hate speech86
See Euronews, In a Tunisia that criminalises homosexuality, a first theatre play on the fight for LGBTQ rights, 25
May 2022 [Dans une Tunisie qui criminalise l'homosexualité, une première pièce de théâtre sur la cause LGBTQ]
87
Euronews, In a Tunisia that criminalises homosexuality, a first theatre play on the fight for LGBTQ rights, 25 May
2022 [Dans une Tunisie qui criminalise l'homosexualité, une première pièce de théâtre sur la cause LGBTQ]
88
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 95

42

c. Violence
2020
The US Department of State wrote in its 2020 Country report on Tunisia that:
On January 13, an officer from the Seventh Police Station in downtown Tunis and two accomplices
allegedly assaulted three transgender women, using Tasers and their fists. They left one individual,
nicknamed Frifta, with serious injuries, including internal bleeding and a skull fracture, according to the
LGBTI-rights organization Damj. Damj, in partnership with Lawyers without Borders (ASF), assisted Frifta inseeking medical care and legal recourse. According to Damj, Frifta filed a complaint against an officer on
January 11 for harassment of sex workers and encountered the same officer while walking in Tunis twodays later with friends. The officer, accompanied by two others, attacked her in retaliation for her earlier
complaint. The Ministry of Interior suspended the primary officer involved and opened an internal
investigation, while the Ministry of Justice General Prosecutors’ Office, initiated a separate criminal
investigation. Both investigations remained underway. On June 17, Damj said the court in El Kef issued
prison sentences in three cases under Article 230, which criminalizes same-sex relations. In one case anindividual who filed a complaint of police abuse was charged under articles criminalizing homosexuality
and offending a police officer. On July 28, the appeals court upheld the conviction of two men accused ofsodomy but reduced their sentence to one year in prison. The First Instance Court of El Kef initiallysentenced the two men on June 3 to two years in prison for homosexuality. A lawyer provided by ASF
89assisted the defendants and led the appeal process.

2021
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and found:
In January 2021, amid interviews [with 6 Tunisian lawyers and one case worker] for this report, protests
erupted across Tunisia. Ignited by worsening economic conditions, the COVID-19 pandemic, police
brutality, and the killing of a protestor. These protests later included the targeting of LGBTQ protestors by
police unions in particular. This led to an ongoing political crisis, resulting in Tunisian President Kais Saied
90
taking over all executive powers, dismissing the government, and freezing parliament.

In March 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on the arrest of LGBTQI activist Rania Amdouni thesame month, preceded by months of harassment (digital and off-line) by police officers:
Amdouni was leaving a restaurant in downtown Tunis on February 27 when a police officer in the street
began verbally harassing her and ridiculing her based on her gender expression, which prompted her to
go to the nearest police station and file a complaint. “Amdouni has been facing consistent harassment by
89

U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2020 Human Rights Report - 30 March 2021, p. 34, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
90
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 17

43

police in the street and online for months, which caused her to suffer severe mental health consequences
and break down,” Hanchiri said Mohammed Amin Hdeiji, a lawyer who accompanied Amdouni to the 7
eme police station on February 27, told Human Rights Watch that police officers in the station ridiculed
Amdouni’s appearance and harassed her based on her presumed sexual orientation. “Eight police officers
surrounded her and repeatedly insulted her, and one told her, ‘You are a homosexual, you will not win
against us, and we will not allow you to defame police officers,’” Hdeiji said. […]In an interview in February before her arrest, Amdouni told Human Rights Watch that since January she
has been subjected to online harassment, bullying, and threats of violence, including death and rape.
Human Rights Watch reviewed many of the Facebook posts, including by individuals who identified
themselves as police officers, harassing Amdouni based on her gender expression and presumed sexual
orientation. A member of parliament, Seif Eddine Makhlouf, ridiculed her on his personal Facebook page
based on her gender expression. Amdouni has since deleted her social media accounts. On January 11,
the police searched for Amdouni near her residence, and asked neighbors if she was there, which
prompted her to leave her neighborhood and hide out, she said: “I don’t feel safe, even in my apartment.
Police came looking for me in my neighborhood. My life is threatened, and my mental health isdeteriorating. People are staring at me in the street and harassing me online.” The right to privacy andnondiscrimination are reflected in Tunisia’s 2014 constitution under article 24 and article 21, respectively.
However, the absence of accountability and reliable complaint systems, as well as the lack of
nondiscrimination legislation based sexual orientation and gender identity under domestic law, limit LGBT
people’s access to redress, creating an environment in which police may abuse them with impunity,
91
Human Rights Watch said.

2022
The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia about the criminalisation ofhomosexuality:
Human rights groups reported an increase in arrests of LGBTQI+ individuals, as well as an increase in casesof societal harassment. Allegations included reports (sic) some police labor unions harassed andendangered LGBTQI+ participants in January and February [2022] protests by posting their homeaddresses or pictures online (doxxing) and engaging in online hate speech. Police faced no repercussions
for doxxing peaceful protesters.

92

d. Online harassment
2020
No relevant information could be found amongst the sources consulted within the time frame for thisreport.

91

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia : Harassment, Arbitrary Detention of LGBT Rights Activists, 9 March 2021
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, pp. 30-31, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
92

44

2021
In March 2021, Human Rights Watch (HWR) reported about the arrest of LGBTQI activist Rania Amdouni
the same month, preceded by months of harassment (digital and off-line) by police officers:
Amdouni was leaving a restaurant in downtown Tunis on February 27 when a police officer in the street
began verbally harassing her and ridiculing her based on her gender expression, which prompted her to
go to the nearest police station and file a complaint. “Amdouni has been facing consistent harassment by
police in the street and online for months, which caused her to suffer severe mental health consequences
and break down,” Hanchiri said Mohammed Amin Hdeiji, a lawyer who accompanied Amdouni to the 7
eme police station on February 27, told Human Rights Watch that police officers in the station ridiculed
Amdouni’s appearance and harassed her based on her presumed sexual orientation. “Eight police officers
surrounded her and repeatedly insulted her, and one told her, ‘You are a homosexual, you will not win
against us, and we will not allow you to defame police officers,’” Hdeiji said. […]In an interview in February before her arrest, Amdouni told Human Rights Watch that since January she
has been subjected to online harassment, bullying, and threats of violence, including death and rape.
Human Rights Watch reviewed many of the Facebook posts, including by individuals who identified
themselves as police officers, harassing Amdouni based on her gender expression and presumed sexual
orientation. A member of parliament, Seif Eddine Makhlouf, ridiculed her on his personal Facebook page
based on her gender expression. Amdouni has since deleted her social media accounts. On January 11,
the police searched for Amdouni near her residence, and asked neighbors if she was there, which
prompted her to leave her neighborhood and hide out, she said: “I don’t feel safe, even in my apartment.
Police came looking for me in my neighborhood. My life is threatened, and my mental health isdeteriorating. People are staring at me in the street and harassing me online.” The right to privacy andnondiscrimination are reflected in Tunisia’s 2014 constitution under article 24 and article 21, respectively.
However, the absence of accountability and reliable complaint systems, as well as the lack of
nondiscrimination legislation based sexual orientation and gender identity under domestic law, limit LGBT
people’s access to redress, creating an environment in which police may abuse them with impunity,93
Human Rights Watch said.

2022
The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia about the criminalisation ofhomosexuality:
Human rights groups reported an increase in arrests of LGBTQI+ individuals, as well as an increase in casesof societal harassment. Allegations included reports (sic) some police labor unions harassed andendangered LGBTQI+ participants in January and February [2022] protests by posting their homeaddresses or pictures online (doxxing) and engaging in online hate speech. Police faced no repercussions
for doxxing peaceful protesters.

94

93

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia : Harassment, Arbitrary Detention of LGBT Rights Activists, 9 March 2021
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, pp. 30-31, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
94

45

January – May 2023
In its World Report 2023 about events which occurred in 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported
that:State actors in Tunisia have undermined lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people’s right toprivacy with digital targeting, namely online harassment and “outing,” and monitoring social media.
Authorities sometimes rely on illegitimately-obtained digital evidence in prosecutions. Human Rights
Watch documented cases where government digital targeting has resulted in crackdowns on LGBT
organizing, as well as arbitrary arrests. As a result of online harassment, LGBT people reported being
forced to change their residence and phone numbers, delete their social media accounts, flee the country95
for risk of persecution, and suffer severe mental health consequences.

e. Discriminationi. Access to state-owned housing
No relevant information could be found amongst the sources consulted within the time frame for thisreport.

ii. Access to public health services
Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 on the rights ofminorities in Tunisia in 2021.96 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information
was translated from French into English:
Their access to health is also severely compromised according to surveys conducted by civil society in2018 and 2021. More than half of LGB people and three quarters of trans people "did not go to the doctor
or take a medical test for fear of mockery, negative judgements, abuse by medical staff, or fear that legal
action on the basis of Article 230 of the Criminal Code would be taken against them".[…]
According to the analysis of our qualitative data, the people belonging to this community did not haveaccess to three rights during the pandemic: the right to health, the right to justice, and the right tosecurity and physical and moral integrity. Indeed, the breakdown in the continuity of care during thegeneral confinement led to a worsening of chronic and acute illnesses. Focus groups conducted with the
LGBTQI++ community and with sub-Saharan migrants revealed that members of these groups living with
HIV/AIDS did not have access to their usual treatment due to a stock-out. This stock shortage also
affected a number of products which, although not directly linked to the pandemic, were used intensively,
such as cleaning products and contraceptives, with women in all groups being the first to suffer. With
regard to access to care following infection, the saturation of intensive care services has led todiscrimination against certain minorities. During the discussion group with people from the LGBTQI++
95

Human Rights Watch (HRW), World Report 2023, 16 January 2023, Country Chapter Tunisia
See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]96

46

community, some of them confirmed that they had not used public health services for fear of being
stigmatised or rejected by the medical profession; transgender people also stated that they had beendenied access to care for Covid-19 because their physical appearance did not match what was on theiridentity card. Even if this reality was already present, the pandemic created an increased need to consult
97
a need to see a doctor, increasing their risk of the virus going be undetected or not seek treatment.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and published preliminary observations on access to health, echoing asurvey carried out by civil society in 2021, revealing that:[…] over half of LGBT persons and three-quarters of trans people did not go to the doctor or do notundergo medical tests for fear of mockery, negative judgments, abuse by medical staff, or fearing thatlegal action based on Article 230 of the Penal Code would be taken against them. Degrading treatment,
lack of confidentiality, regular violations of medical secrecy, as well as exclusion from the specific needs ofthe community have been reported by LGBT people who have used health facilities, especially when it
comes to sexual and reproductive health. […]During [his] visit, [he] heard many testimonies of a state of extreme anxiety, anxiety, and the negative
impact of the prevailing stigma on self-esteem. More than half of LGBT people surveyed in a 2018 study
had attempted suicide at least once and nearly half had self-harmed at least once in their lives. Several
civil society organizations offer psychological assistance and support, but it appears that access to Statesupport services is limited due to a lack of capacity and qualified personnel. I am also concerned about
testimonies gathered during the mission of breaches of medical confidentiality by psychologists who
revealed sexual orientation and/or gender identity to their patient's family or who had pathologizing care98
for LGBT people, as if they needed to be "treated" for an illness.

The same source reported about the situation of trans people that:[He] notes with concern the inability of trans people to access hormonal treatments and gender-affirming
operations, which are often considered essential treatments for their survival. In Tunisia, doctors areprohibited from prescribing hormonal therapy to trans people who are then forced to self-medicate
exposing them to various complications that arise from this practice, including liver diseases and blood99
stability problems.

The same source reported about people living with HIV that:

97

Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, pp. 6, 14 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations
minorées : consultation avec la société civile]
98
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021, Health99
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on the visit
to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity, 18 June 2021, Health47

LGBT people living with HIV are recognized by the state as they are among the key populations of global
HIV/AIDS programming, particularly men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans women. The
prevalence of HIV infection among MSM, estimated at 9.1%, is particularly revealing and shows a great
disparity with the adult population of Tunisia aged between 15 and 49 whose infection rate is <1%. [TheUN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination] welcome[s] the
implementation of a national policy on routine viral load testing for the monitoring of antiretroviraltreatment and HIV testing based on voluntary and informed consent. However, [he is] concerned about
the situation of the "lost of sight", and in this regard [he has] received reports that people have notcontinued their treatment because of the stigmatization suffered in contact with health personnel. [He is]also concerned about the criminalisation of same-sex sexual relations and sex work, which increases the
exposure of key populations to violence and reduces their ability to file complaints. This criminalization
also increases the fear of homosexual and trans populations, as well as sex workers, to be arrested andforces them to go underground, to refrain from participating in HIV prevention and HIV risk prevention
programmes or even to possess condoms or lubricants, as this could constitute, for police officers,100
physical proof of homosexuality or sex work.

The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia about reproductive rights of
LGBTQI individuals that they “reported problems accessing health services due to gender identity that
did not conform to legal identity documents.”101

iii. Access to state employment (e.g. civil service)
No relevant information could be found amongst the sources consulted within the time frame for thisreport.

iv. Access to public education
Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 on the rights ofminorities in Tunisia in 2021.102 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information
was translated from French into English:
The distance learning imposed by the confinement measures has also had a detrimental effect on accessto education. The most vulnerable members of these communities do not have the technical and financial
resources to ensure the continuity of online education. The focus group conducted with the LGBTQI+

100

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, People living with HIV
101
U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report, 23 February 2023, p. 26, Reproductive Rights
102
See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]48

community revealed that "only 10% of LGBTQI+ people were able to continue their studies at a distance,
103
due to a lack of internet connection and access to computers and electricity".

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and published preliminary observations, notably on the subject of theharassment of LGBTQI pupils, forcing many of them to leave school early:
I am very concerned about this situation and note the lack of knowledge of this phenomenon and of
specific measures to combat violence and harassment of LGBT people in schools. Furthermore, I regretthat school curricula do not provide specific information on diversity and respect for human rights and sex
education programmes in particular with regard to issues related to sexual orientation and violence based104
on gender identity.

III.

Societal Attitudes Towards LGBTQI+ Individuals

In April 2020, the Middle East Institute (MEI) published an article in which it referred to a BBC poll from2019 that found that 7% of Tunisians considered homosexuality to be “acceptable”.105

a. Representation in Media and social media
The online media Pink News published an article in September 2020 relaying an online controversy
around homophobic posts by a beauty influencer in Tunisia:
Lady Samara, a beauty influencer in Tunisia, has defended going on a homophobic rant, and calling LGBT+
people “mentally sick perverts”, by insisting that she has “lots of gay fans”.
Samara, who has almost half a million Instagram followers and 250,000 YouTube subscribers, posted a 23106
minute homophobic rant last week sparking outrage online.

The online media Rights Africa also published an article on this subject in September 2020, relaying thepetition by Tunisian activists “to seek the removal of homophobic social media influencer Lady Samara

103

Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 15 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
104
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Education
105
Middle East Institute (MEI)/Ryan Grace, Digital security and the LGBTI+ rights movement in Tunisia, 22 April
2020
106
ThePinkNews, Beauty influencer insists she has ‘lots of gay fans’ after calling queer people ‘mentally sickperverts’. Sure, Jan, 17 September 202049

from Instagram, where she has about half a million followers”.107 The text of the joint statement by
Mawjoudin (We Exist), Damj, and Access Now Tunisia was published in the article:
Recently in Tunisia, social media platforms have witnessed a prevalent spread of hate speech andincitement to violence against the queer community, following inflammatory statements by a Tunisian“influencer” called “Lady Samara” on the Instagram platform, who used her influence on her followers to
spread hate speech, insult and mockery of the queer community. She played with words so that theincitement was not direct, as she used phrases such as “I do not respect them,” “they lost all theirprinciples”, “a phenomenon that must be addressed.”
In addition to mentioning the names of queer activists and calling them and bombarding them with slurs,
which threatened their security and prompted many of her followers to send threatening and insulting
messages to these activists who are now suffering from the consequences of her speech, it must be said
that she has involved other “influencers” in her counter-attack campaign against the queer community,
such as the so-called “lapa” who is known for his hatred towards the queer community and his violent
108
rhetoric against them.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterward that:
Hate speech against LGBT people and incitement to homophobic-transphobic violence also appear
frequently in the Tunisian media. After receiving several complaints, Tunisia's Independent High Authority
for Audio-visual Communication (HAICA) – in what can be considered the first official reaction of a public
institution to violence against the LGBT community – issued a warning against a television channel for
homophobic statements in October 2015. Since then, the High Authority has intervened a dozen times incomplaints relating to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the audio-visual
sector. However, this number seems derisory compared to what civil society organizations call a "wave ofhate" that finds a particularly fertile ground on social media that is not subject to any regulation.
According to information received during the visit, the 2020 lockdown period was particularly difficult
when it comes to hatred against LGBT people. False reports that the coronavirus pandemic is apunishment from God because of homosexuality has indeed been fuelled by audiovisual, social media andmosques. This rumour has sparked a huge wave of hate speech against LGBT people, adding to theanxiety of the pandemic and the anxiety of living confined to an often-hostile family environment.
Influencers have also contributed to the "hunt" for LGBT people on social media. Three of them inparticular harassed and disclosed the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBT people, they asked thepeople who follow them to take action to stop their activities on social networks. As a result of this call,LGBT people have been harassed by thousands of people on social media, they have had their accounts
hacked, their photos and personal data shared in groups, and some have even been physically109
assaulted.

107

Rights Africa, Tunisian activists to Instagram : Stifle homophobic Lady Samara, 23 September 2020
Rights Africa, Tunisian activists to Instagram : Stifle homophobic Lady Samara, 23 September 2020
109
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Hate speech
10850

b. Representation by influential cultural, political and religious figures
Freedom House wrote in its 2023 Freedom in the World report that in Tunisia, “societal discriminationand laws criminalizing same-sex sexual activity impede active political participation for LGBT+ people,
and political parties largely fail to address LGBT+ issues”.110c. Impact of societal norms on state attitudes
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and explained on Tunisia:[It is noteworthy to mention here an overall observation from the interviewees [with 6 Tunisian lawyers
and one case worker] about the Tunisian criminal system. There is often a push for appeals in each case,and the prosecution and court are aware of those who enforce higher charges in the initial hearing.
“Things go a little bit better [at appeals] because in general that’s the philosophy of Tunisian justice. Evenin the first instance courts in Tunisia have the conviction that the appeal will change the sentence… I
mean it will… but I mean for example if it is three years or two years in the first instance court, it will be
like… eight months or nine months in the appeals.” The cases are held in closed courtrooms. In theinterviews the prevailing reason for this placement on LGBTQ cases is the morality tinge of the cases: thecourts do not want to expose the general public to these cases that are seen as “immoral” and111“indecent”.

The same source reported that:
There is a significant lack of accountability governing arrest and prosecution in Tunisia, Egypt, andLebanon, and protections, if any, afforded to LGBTQ defendants. A number of factors influence outcome,such as: authorities’ perceptions of their cultural roles; political clout of arrestees/defendants; andresource constraints. A repeated theme in the data from the interviews was how untouchable the police
are, with their placement as the “protectors of society.” This role was most often reported in interviews
from lawyers active in Tunisia and Lebanon. For example, in asking how courts react to illegally gathereddigital evidence and confessions, one Tunisian lawyer said that the “work of police for the court is likeholy one. Yes, it’s true. It’s the reality.” This creates conditions in which police decision-making andbehaviors are rarely questioned; another Tunisian lawyer noted that “the investigation of the police [isseen as being] true and it’s not questionable.”
In all three countries, a dichotomy is set up between the accused and the justice system: on one side, thedefendants are framed as subverting morality, and on the other side, the police and the courts are framed
as the appointed protectors of morality. A Tunisian lawyer remarked how, “The judges don’t go with us[...] It’s because the police and the judge are in the same team ‘protecting morals, protecting oursociety.’”[…]

110

Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2023 – Tunisia, 13 April 2023, Section B – Political Pluralism andParticipation
111
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 36

51

Part of the impunity enjoyed by the police in Tunisia has also been linked to their powerful unions. Police
unions in Tunisia have helped shield those police officers who engage in abusive and violent tactics,
112
including for charges of torture.

The same source reported further on occurrences of neighbourhood reports to the police:
One of the less common ways through which queer people end up arrested or prosecuted is throughofficial complaints lodged with the police. These complaints might be filed by neighbors, or from staff at
businesses patronized by members of the LGTBQ community. The language of the complaints
documented in the case files demonstrates that they are often rooted in homophobia or transphobia. For
example, a complaint might allege, “they noticed [something] ‘unusual’… it’s not my word, their words,
they use the word ‘abnormal’, ‘unusual’ behavior, something which they deem not conforming to thedominant norm.”Three of the cases from Lebanon and six cases from Tunisia were initiated on the basis of “suspicious”
activities pertaining to the individuals’ appearances, and the individuals looking “effeminate.”[…]
Indeed, arrests most commonly result from these reports in Tunisia, occurring in “many cases”. One
interviewee noted that it comes “especially [from] the neighbors… when someone knows that in thatfloor in that apartment there is a gay person or there is a gay group they tell the police and the police
enters the apartment or floor or the café or the bar… sometimes on the street if there is a trans person
the police arrest them [...] just for being trans.” One interviewee also pointed out that, in addition tohomophobia and transphobia, these reports can be rooted in petty neighborly spats:“[…] in most of these “moral” let’s say cases, is that neighbors for example if someone who’s on top of
you or beneath you is annoyed by some noise or if there are a lot of people coming in and out or if
someone is throwing a party and they are annoyed and they call the police, and when the police comes
there and theysee something that they dislike [...] they would [use] whatever they can find to basically arrest these113
people”.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterward that during the visit, “[he] was informed thatissues relating to sexual orientation are generally considered to be extremely sensitive, with somestakeholders describing them as taboo. This appears to be related to widespread resistance to public
scrutiny of sexuality issues, with comprehensive sex education being a consistently cited example inmeetings with State and non-state stakeholders”.114 The UN Independent Expert further noted that:
There is a need to work on a better methodological and linguistic understanding of issues related tosexual orientation and gender identity. All interviewees recognized that sexual and gender diversity is part112

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, pp. 64-65-66
113
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, “Suspicious Activity”: Neighborhood Reports and Surveillance, p. 97
114
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Introduction52

of human nature, but all referred to the weight of religion and social mores that impede its visibility in the
public space. There are very significant gaps in the appropriation of terminology that qualifies theseidentities. In many institutions, for example, trans women have been described as gay men.
The State does not collect data or information on the realities experienced by LGTB persons. I have been
informed of the resistance within the National Institute of Statistics to the idea of producing data in thisregard. I also note the lack of recognition by the State of LGTB people and their realities of life in public
policy. In addition to court judgments, virtually all pieces of data or information documenting the realities
and challenges experienced by LGBT people are gathered and systematized by civil society organizations.
In particular, there is a general lack of awareness of the concepts of gender identity and expression as
tools to describe and take into consideration the daily lives of Tunisian trans women and men whom I met
and interviewed during my mission. Non-normative sexual orientations and gender identities are
considered marginal in Tunisia, and while their visibility increased after the revolution, some feel that thisvisibility led to further rejection and marginalization at the personal level.
Even in cases where the challenges facing the LGBT community are recognized, it has been common tohear some state officials express the view that these issues are "negligible" compared to other challenges
facing Tunisians, including rising unemployment among young graduates and related poverty issues,inequalities in development between different regions, economic difficulties and, more recently, thechallenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this perspective, some have stated that there are few demands
for more protection of LGBT people and that the decriminalization of homosexuality has not been
included in the major demands of the Tunisian revolution and, in the face of the current realities of
115
unemployment and economic stagnation, continue to be unimportant in the eyes of most citizens.

The same source also noted that “[…] the lack of a specific approach and education for State agents
often translates into prejudice and discrimination. All [his] interlocutors agreed on the need to know thereality experienced by LGBT people in order to be able to integrate an approach that takes into
consideration their problems and allows them to live in dignity”.116
In 2022 the French newspaper Liberation published an interview with Rania Arfaoui, an activist with theTunisian LGBTQI organisation Mawoudin.117 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following
information was translated from French into English:- There is real resistance from the political forces elected to the Assembly of People's Representatives(ARP) on the issue of the rights of queer and trans people. The parties present, whether Ennahdha orothers, are against the decriminalisation of homosexuality or have no clear position on Article 230.
- And the left-wing parties?
- Even the left-wing parties are cautious on this issue, because they prioritise struggles: the priority is the118
socio-economic situation.
115

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Introduction
116
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Housing
117
See Liberation, Newsletter “L” - Droits LGBTQ+ : “La Tunisie est un pays paradoxal”, 6 June 2021
118
Liberation, Newsletter “L” - Droits LGBTQ+ : “La Tunisie est un pays paradoxal”, 6 June 2021

53

IV.

Treatment by Non-State Actors
a. Violence

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown
on the situations of minorities in Tunisia in 2021. Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, thefollowing information was translated from French into English:
Minorities have been victims of attacks on their physical integrity in the form of physical or sexual
violence, which increased during the during the period of general confinement, such as the assault
suffered by queer feminist activist Rania Amdouni because of her gender identity. Indeed, the scourge ofphysical violence based on gender or sexual orientation has spread alarmingly with the general lockdown.
According to figures published on 3 May 2020, more than 7,000 cases of violence had been reported tothe toll-free number set up by the Tunisian Ministry for Women, the Family, Children and the Elderly. Theinterviews revealed that LGBTQI+ women were even more exposed to violence during lockdown, while
the number of cases of violence recorded by associations working with the LGBTQI+ community attests tothis increase in physical assaults, rapes and harassment against them as a result of the Tunisian state's
119
policy of confinement.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterward that:
Being an assertive member of the LGBT community in Tunisia and being visible both to one's relatives andin the public space is perceived, by many, as a transgression of the social order and in particular of thesocial roles attributed to women and men that reflect an idea of male supremacy, patriarchy andreproductive sexuality in the context of marriage. Perceptions of gender are strictly defined in Tunisia,
including how people are supposed to dress and act. Consequently, society punishes not only homosexual
behaviour under article 230 of the Criminal Code, but all identities and expressions that are perceived bysome as violating the "social pact" and an affront to customs and traditions. Effeminate men, male
women, and trans women in particular are at high risk of violence due to their dress, appearance andmannerisms and are subject to increased surveillance due to the intersection of their identities. Many of
the interlocutors interviewed referred to these existences as "abnormal", "asocial", and "amoral". As one
member of civil society told us: "Assuming one's sexual orientation or gender identity is already in itself
an act of resistance." Being visible as a member of the LGBT community is seen as a militant act that is anecessary step towards freeing itself from social norms that condemn minority sexual and gender
identities.
This visibility nevertheless faces strong resistance within the family and society and is sanctioned by many
who rely on the law, mores or religion to try to "put" the members of the community on the "right path".

119

Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 15 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]54

This results in high levels of institutional, psychological and physical violence, as well as discrimination at120
all levels.

The same source indicated specifically on the situation of Trans people in Tunisia that:
Trans people, through their gender expression and the difference between gender and their legal identity,
operate in a hostile environment and are particularly vulnerable to stigma, discrimination and violence.
They become obvious targets and face daily difficulties in accessing housing, education, employment, or
health where they face humiliation, violence, and discrimination that results in great psychologicaldistress and economic precariousness in particular. To protect themselves, they often avoid displaying
121
themselves in public space and become invisible, left to their own ends, and marginalized.

b. Online harassment
Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown
on the situations of minorities in Tunisia in 2021.122 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, thefollowing information was translated from French into English: “During the general confinement,
members of the LGBTQI+ community were victims of ‘revenge porn’ through the dissemination of sexual
content without their consent, and associations also recorded cases of blackmail”.123
Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report on anti-LGBT digital violence early 2023 in which theorganisation “documented 26 cases of online harassment, including doxxing—publishing personallyidentifiable information about an individual without their consent—and outing—exposing LGBT people’s
identities without their consent—on public social media platforms in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia”.124
The same report found that:
The lack of justice and impunity for abuses, coupled with the immediate harms from the digital targetingand impunity for those harms, have had long-term mental health impacts on LGBT victims of digitaltargeting. LGBT people recounted the isolation they experienced months and even years after the
instance of targeting, as well as their constant fear, post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety. Many
120

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Social exclusion practices
121
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Social exclusion practices
122
See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
123
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 15 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]124
Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All This Terror Because of a Photo” Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequencesfor LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa, 21 February 2023

55

LGBT people reported suicidal ideation as a result of their experiences with digital targeting, and someeven reported attempting suicide. Most of the LGBT people targeted online said they stopped using digitalplatforms and deleted their social media accounts as a result of digital targeting, which only exacerbatedtheir feeling of isolation.
These abusive tactics highlight the prevalence of digital targeting and the need for digital platforms andgovernments to take action to ensure LGBT people’s safety online.

125c. Discriminationi. Access to housing
Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 on the rights ofminorities in Tunisia in 2021.126 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information
was translated from French into English:
Nor is access to housing guaranteed for people from the community, according to Beity's study, whichnotes "the presence of discriminatory experiences in the lives of LBT people in terms of abusive eviction
127
from their place of residence because of their non-normative sexual orientation or gender identity".

ii. Access to work
From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
A recent study highlighted a particularly high rate of unemployment among people with a university
degree (74% compared to 15.1% in the population) due, in particular, to negative attitudes towards sexualand gender diversity, which create a hostile work environment. The study also highlights the economic
precariousness of trans people whose monthly income is less than 100 TND. As mentioned above, transpeople suffer from exacerbated discrimination due to the lack of legal gender recognition and access togender-affirming treatments. This situation often pushes them to seek work in the informal economy andin particular sex work and they have therefore been hit hard by the pandemic, which has further
aggravated their already precarious situation and their vulnerability to arrests for violating the curfew
128
and/or confinement, in addition to other offences.

125

Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All This Terror Because of a Photo” Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequencesfor LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa, 21 February 2023
126
See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021, p. 6 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations
minorées : consultation avec la société civile]
127
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 6 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
128
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021

56

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 on the rights ofminorities in Tunisia in 2021.129 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information
was translated from French into English:
Every year, the data collected by the network of Anti-Discrimination Points confirms the persistence ofviolence and discrimination suffered by members of the LGBTQI+ community. Their right to work is also
violated, with 43% of cases of inequality at work, intolerance, interference in private life or dismissal,
130
solely sexual orientation.

iii. Specificities for LGBTQI individuals living in rural areas
From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:[He] learned that asymmetries between urban and rural areas also impact the lived experience of LGBT
people. A very large proportion of those interviewed during my mission came from rural areas and had
131
moved to the city in search of environments where they could acquire a certain anonymity.

iv. Specific hardships linked to socio-economic difficulties
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and noted among others that
“The same pattern [as the pattern of targeting poor individuals rather than wealthy queer individuals in
Lebanon] is seen in Tunisia, where interviewees have defined trans women are at greatest risk”.132
The online media Rights Africa reported in April 2021 about the action of the Tunisian rights group
Mawjoudin and its actions in support of LGBTQI Tunisians during the pandemic:
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a great demand for the group’s counselling and otherservices, Mawjoudin states in its newsletter.

129

See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
130
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 6 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
131
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Urban vs. Rural
132
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 47

57

“The virus has an impact on the world in general and on all groups, especially vulnerable groups in Tunisia,
including the queer community, asylum seekers, immigrants, and women who live in a vulnerable
situation,” the newsletter reads.
“The queer community has had difficulty coping with the sudden new circumstances in their homes. Theiridentities have been disintegrated. During the quarantine among family members who do not support
them, they have been in a financially difficult situation and limited access to health and psychologicalservices.”
Mawjoudin’s aid took many forms, including legal, medical, and psychological support, as well as direct
financial support and housing and food aid for dozens of queer community members. It also partneredwith other organizations providing aid during the pandemic to help community members receive133
additional support.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 on the rights ofminorities in Tunisia in 2021.134 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, the following information
was translated from French into English:
LGBTQI+ people are regularly victims of homophobia and transphobia. During the period of confinement,
they have been the target of hate campaigns and legal proceedings, compounded by extreme socio135
economic insecurity resulting from the loss of their jobs and sources of income.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterward that:
As in many contexts around the world, social exclusion mechanisms mean that the LGBT population isover-represented in the ranks of the poor. For example, all trans persons who responded a recent survey
reported having an income of less than 100 TND per month. Poverty is the bedrock of a whirlwind of
discrimination and violence that alienates from state services and increases their disadvantage when136
confronted with hostility from state agents.

v. Specific situation of LGBTQI+ individuals displaced to Tunisia
From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterward that:133

Rights Africa, Tunisian LGBT rights group provides vital services during pandemic, 14 April 2021
See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
135
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 15 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
136
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Socio-economic status
13458

[He] was able to interact with several organizations serving LGBT people who were forced to leave theircountry. Among the main challenges identified are the insecurity of a system in which their existence is137
criminalized, and the lack of access to rapid resettlement processes.

76crimes published an article in March 2023 about attacks on African LGBTQI refugees in Tunisia:
From long before Saied’s speech, racist and homophobic attacks on black refugees have been occurring in
Tunisia for years, as demonstrated by testimony that Working for Our Wellbeing collected from morethan a dozen LGBT refugees. The refugees — two from Ivory Coast and the rest from Cameroon — citedmultiple instances of homophobic and racist beatings, rapes, extortion and robbery by native Tunisians. In
each case, Tunisian police were no help and the U.N. Office of the High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
138
provided little or no assistance.

In March 2023, the news agency France 24 published an article reporting about the attack of a shelter in
Tunis hosting LGBT refugees from sub-Saharan Africa by Tunisian anti-gay vigilantes.139 Using an onlinetranslation tool, deepl.com, the following information was translated from French into English:
On the night of Thursday 23 February, a mob of men attacked the occupants of a home for refugees fromthe sub-Saharan LGBTQ community, in a district in the north of Tunis. Beatings, insults and stab wounds:
the residents of the hostel say they experienced a night of terror. Around thirty people, including at least
6 with United Nations refugee cards, were arrested that evening. A few days earlier, on Monday 20
February, another home for LGBT refugees was similarly attacked in a district of Tunis city centre.[…]France 24 Observateurs spoke to two refugees who were present when the attack took place on 23
February in a hostel in Ariana, on the outskirts of Tunis: "The landlord's son threatened us with eviction.
The next day, he came back with an armed pack". […]"Instead of arresting the men who were attacking us, the police took us away".[…]“The police tear up our refugee cards and call us fags.”[…]"Chiraz" (pseudonym) was rehoused in a shelter run by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday 28 February with another trans- refugee from sub-Saharan Africa. The
UNHCR's Tunisian office also provided medical care for the injured. "Brian" (pseudonym), another LGBT
sub-Saharan refugee, was not so lucky. He was injured in the attack on 20 February and then again on 23
140
February, and is now homeless.

V.

Treatment of LGBTQI+ Organizations and Human Rights Defenders

137

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Migrants, refugees, asylum seekers
138
76 crimes, African LGBTQ refugees, seeking Europe, find terror in Tunisia, 14 March 2023
139
See France 24, In Tunis, two shelters for LGBT refugees from Subsaharan Africa attacked, 01 March 2023 [ATunis, deux foyers de réfugiés LGBT subsahariens attaqués]140
France 24, In Tunis, two shelters for LGBT refugees from Subsaharan Africa attacked, 01 March 2023 [A Tunis,deux foyers de réfugiés LGBT subsahariens attaqués]59

a. Government recognition of LGBTQI+ NGOs
76 crimes reported in February 2020 that the same month, a Tunisian appeals court definitely rejected
the government’s bid to shut down the LGBT rights group Shams:
On Feb. 21, a Tunisian appeals court (the Court of Cassation) definitively rejected the government’s bid toshut down the LGBT rights group Shams.
Shams (Arabic for “sun”) now has full legal authorization to continue its advocacy work. [However, its
founder and president, Mounir Baatour, remains the target of legal action. He recently fled to France to
avoid prosecution.]
The government began its case against Shams by declaring that “Shams cannot continue its activities,
which go against the traditions of Tunisians, who are Muslim. Islam prohibits these practices. also
prohibited by Tunisian law, under Article 230 of the penal code.”That ruling was rejected in a lower court in February 2016. The government appealed, but lost again at141
the Court of Appeal of Tunis in May 2019.

In December 2020, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), wrote
in its annual report on the rights of homosexuals and the criminalisation of homosexual acts across theglobe that in Tunisia in February 2020, the Tunisian Court of Cassation definitively rejected thegovernment’s latest known attempt to shut down the LGBT rights group Shams:This should—in theory—mean that LGBTI- related objectives are not any more a legal ground for refusing
registration to organisations working on sexual and gender diversity issues. However, the group’s leader
fled to France one month prior to the decision, after being charged with “blasphemy” over a post on
Facebook and following a series of fatwas issued by local imams reportedly calling for his assassination.
He declared in an interview that he would be willing to return to Tunisia if given police protection and if
142
the blasphemy charge of [sic] is dropped.

In March 2021 the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) reported that:On 05.03.21, hundreds of persons protested against the imprisonment of Rania Amdouni, a democracy
and LGBTIQ activist who was sentenced to six months in prison on charges of insulting the police.
Amdouni is a member of the human rights group Damj, Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality, andhad taken part in the protests in recent weeks. The police had published personal information about
Amdouni on social media over several weeks, including her address, and had also made derogatory
143
comments about her.

141

76 crimes, Tunisia : Appeals court supports LGBT activist group Shams, February 2020
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), State-Sponsored Homophobia Global Legislation Overview Update 2020, December 2020, p. 173
143
German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Briefing Notes, 8 March 2021
142

60

In March 2021, several associations and human rights organisations including ARTICLE 19 signed a joint
appeal to release human rights defender Rania Al Amdouni, detained after filing a complaint against
security force unions for online threats against her. The joint appeal stated notably:
All complaints that Al-Amdouni filed against her assailants have been frozen, including those deposited
with the Central Inspectorate of the Ministry of Interior, and in return, she was prosecuted. In addition tothis, the charge she faces is according to a crime that does not exist, since the case file was devoid of any
144complaint filed by a public official, which makes the crime lose one of its conditions.

For more information regarding this case see section I., ii. Treatment in Detention Facilities and iii.
Prosecutons and convictions under laws that are deployed against the LGBTQ+ community.
From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
Decree-Law No. 2011-88 of 24 September 2011, on the organization of associations in Tunisia has allowed
the emergence of a good number of organizations working on the defence of human rights in general andthe rights of LGBT people in particular but the information received from Tunisian civil society indicatesthe existence of several obstacles to their work.
At the level of legal registration, there are indications that the procedure has become uncertain and that
LGBT associations may not obtain registration if they openly indicate that they are working on the rights
of LGBT people. Unable to register, associations cannot work in accordance with the legislation making
their activity illegal. In the past, [he has] communicated my concerns to the Tunisian State regarding
attempts to obstruct Sham’s exercise of its freedom of association. These limitations constitute violations
against Tunisia's commitments in the area of freedom of association, in particular through its ratification
145of the ICCPR.

In July 2022, Amnesty International published a press release on its website on the situation of humanrights in Tunisia. Using an online translation tool, deepL, the following paragraph was translated from
French into English:
In February 2022, the President also accused civil society organisations of serving foreign interests anddeclared his intention to ban "foreign funding". In addition, a restrictive draft law on associations, aversion of which has been leaked, would, if passed, roll back many hard-won protections for freedom of
association by amending Decree-Law 2011-80, which regulates civil society and guarantees civil
146
organisations the right to exist and operate freely.

144

ARTICLE 19, Tunisia: Activist who reported online abuse by security forces must be released, 8 March 2021
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Obstacles to the work of human rights defenders
146
Amnesty International (AI), Tunisia. The worrying decline in human rights must be reversed as a matter ofurgency, July 2022 [Tunisie. Il est urgent d’inverser l’inquiétante régression des droits humains]
145

61

b. State treatment of LGBTQI+ activists or those supporting their case or
those perceived as such
The organisation Frontline Defenders published information about LGBTQI activists arrested in Tunisia
from 2020 to 2023:
22 January 2020
Trans woman human rights defender Frifta violently attacked by police
On 13 January 2020, woman human rights defender Frifta was violently attacked and subjected to electric
shocks by three men including a police officer in Tunis. Since then, no action has been taken by the police
to hold the perpetrators accountable.
5 February 2020
Death threats and smear campaign against woman human rights defender Rania Amdouni
Since late January 2020, woman human rights defender Rania Amdouni has been targeted with death
threats and an intensified smear campaign linked to her peaceful human rights work.
Rights9 March 2020
Intensified intimidation and surveillance of Badr Baabou
During the first week of March 2020, human rights defender Badr Baabou was subjected to intensified
intimidation and surveillance by the police. His colleagues, friends and family were also harassed andquestioned by the police.
11 December 2020
Charge against human rights defender Hamza Nasri
On 8 December 2020, the Tunisian police arrested human rights defenders Saif Ayedi and Hamza Nasri
during a peaceful demonstration in front of the Tunisian parliament. The Public Prosecutor charged Saif
Ayedi and Hamza Nasri with 'damaging properties'. On 10 December the two human rights defenders
were conditionally released until their next hearing which has not yet been scheduled.
25 January 2021
Detention of human rights defender Hamza Nasri
On 21 January 2021, the Public Prosecutor ordered the conditional release of human rights defenderHamza Nasri.
On 18 January 2021, the Tunisian police arrested human rights defender Hamza Nasri following his
participation in a peaceful demonstration against the deteriorating economic situation in Tunis. The Public
Prosecutor accused Hamza Nasri of ‘committing an act that violates the public morals’.
22 March 2021
Woman human rights defender Rania Amdouni released
On 17 March 2021, the Appeals Court in Tunis released woman human rights defender Rania Amdouni
and fined her 200 Dinars (Approximately 60 Euros).
On 4 March 2021, the District Court of Tunis sentenced woman human rights defender Rania Amdouni to
six months in prison. She has been convicted with “violating the general morals”, “insulting agovernmental employee”, and “being drunk in public places” and is currently being detained at Manouba
Women’s Civil Prison.
2 November 2021
Prominent LGBTIQ+ rights defender attacked by police and security personnelOn 21 October 2021, humanrights defender Badr Baabou was attacked in Tunis on his way home by a police officer in plain-clothes

62and an internal security officer in uniform. On 25 October 2021, the human rights defender registered a147
complaint about the incident at the Public Prosecutors Office in the First Instance Court in Tunis.

76 crimes reported in January 2020 that “Mounir Baatour, the leader of the Tunisian gay rights group
Shams, has fled to France for safety”.148 The article further indicated that:
Before his decision to flee, Baatour had been a candidate in last year’s Tunisian presidential election. In
Tunisia, his life was under threat from fatwas issued by anti-gay imams. He had also been charged with149
blasphemy for a post on Facebook.

In April 2020, the Middle East Institute (MEI) published an article on digital security among the Tunisian
LGBTQI community based on an interview with Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival:
According to Mawjoudin, over 90 percent of cases made under Article 230 used digital evidence pulledfrom cell phones, laptops, or social media accounts. In response to the weaponization of digital platforms
against the LGBTI+ community, activists have increasingly emphasized the implementation of digital
security measures to keep the community safe.

150

In December 2020, the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) published an article by Sania Farooqui, ajournalist who covered the Arab Spring from London in 2011 and wrote about the situation of the LGBT
community in Tunisia ten years later:
Judicial harrasssments and the rise in arrests under anti-sodomy laws, invokng sharia law in bid to shut
down LGBT rights group in Tunisia has also been a growing concern. Attempts to shut down advocacy
groups defending the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people is contrary to
151international law and standards.

In February 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Tunisian police arresting and using violenceagainst LGBTI activists during civilian protests that began many regions of Tunisia on January 15 2021,
sparked by declining economic conditions and exacerbated by the pandemic:
Tunisian security forces have repeatedly targeted protesters, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
and intersex (LGBTI) activists at protests, Human Rights Watch said today. The targeting involved arbitraryarrests, physical assaults, threats to rape and kill, and refusing access to legal counsel.
Human Rights Watch documented cases in which the police have singled out LGBTI activists for particular
mistreatment at protests. At the same time, social media posts have harassed LGBTI activists, revealing
their personal information including home addresses and phone numbers, and “outing” them. Individuals
147

Front Line Defenders, result from search with words #LGBT & #Tunisia, no date [last accessed 03 August 2023]
76 crimes, Tunisian gay-rights leader flees to France for safety, January 2020
149
76 crimes, Tunisian gay-rights leader flees to France for safety, January 2020
150
MEI (Ryan Grace), Digital security and the LGBTI+ rights movement in Tunisia, 22 April 2020
151
IPS News, A Decade after the Arab Spring, Tunisia Fails to Keep up with the Process of Democratisation, 22
December 2020
148

63

also smeared them online based on their sexual orientation or gender identity and posted their photos
with messages inciting violence against them.
“LGBTI activists who persist in protesting are terrified that security forces will single them out at protests,
round them up, and abuse them with impunity,” said Rasha Younes, lesbian, gay, bisexual, andtransgender (LGBT) rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Security forces have an obligation toprotect the right of peaceful protest, not harass activists whose bold engagement has contributed toTunisia’s reputation as a regional leader in its progress on human rights.[…]Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 LGBTI rights activists, who said they were abused by authorities indistinct incidents, 5 lawyers who represented some of the victims in these cases, and an activist who said
he fled the country to escape police persecution. Human Rights Watch also reviewed online footage ofapparent police violence, as well as statements by individuals and nongovernmental organizations, andvisual media provided by victims documenting incidents of violence and online harassment.
All activists interviewed said police verbally harassed them and threatened them with violence, including
three threatened with rape and five threatened with death. Seven said security forces arbitrarily arrested
them, and eight said they were harassed online. Nine said they were physically abused at protests or inarbitrary detention, and three said police intimidated them, followed them in the street, and searched forthem in their neighborhoods, prompting them to relocate.
As a result of the online harassment, people interviewed said they felt they had to leave their homes andneighborhoods and delete their social media accounts. One activist said he fled the country after police152
arbitrarily detained and beat him, and his home address and phone number were posted online.”

In March 2021, HRW reported on the arrest of LGBTQI activist Rania Amdouni the same month,preceded by months of harassment by police officers:
Amdouni was leaving a restaurant in downtown Tunis on February 27 when a police officer in the street
began verbally harassing her and ridiculing her based on her gender expression, which prompted her to
go to the nearest police station and file a complaint. “Amdouni has been facing consistent harassment by
police in the street and online for months, which caused her to suffer severe mental health consequences
and break down,” Hanchiri said Mohammed Amin Hdeiji, a lawyer who accompanied Amdouni to the 7
eme police station on February 27, told Human Rights Watch that police officers in the station ridiculed
Amdouni’s appearance and harassed her based on her presumed sexual orientation. “Eight police officers
surrounded her and repeatedly insulted her, and one told her, ‘You are a homosexual, you will not win
against us, and we will not allow you to defame police officers,’” Hdeiji said. […]In an interview in February before her arrest, Amdouni told Human Rights Watch that since January she
has been subjected to online harassment, bullying, and threats of violence, including death and rape.
Human Rights Watch reviewed many of the Facebook posts, including by individuals who identified
themselves as police officers, harassing Amdouni based on her gender expression and presumed sexual
orientation. A member of parliament, Seif Eddine Makhlouf, ridiculed her on his personal Facebook page
based on her gender expression. Amdouni has since deleted her social media accounts. On January 11,
the police searched for Amdouni near her residence, and asked neighbors if she was there, which
prompted her to leave her neighborhood and hide out, she said: “I don’t feel safe, even in my apartment.
Police came looking for me in my neighborhood. My life is threatened, and my mental health isdeteriorating. People are staring at me in the street and harassing me online.” The right to privacy and152

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia: Police Arrest, Use Violence Against LGBTI Activists, 23 February 202164

nondiscrimination are reflected in Tunisia’s 2014 constitution under article 24 and article 21, respectively.
However, the absence of accountability and reliable complaint systems, as well as the lack of
nondiscrimination legislation based sexual orientation and gender identity under domestic law, limit LGBT
people’s access to redress, creating an environment in which police may abuse them with impunity,
153
Human Rights Watch said.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
LGBT activists and human rights defenders of LGBT people are particularly targeted and regularly
subjected to harassment, death threats and attacks because of their work to promote the rights of LGBT
people. [He has] sent several communications to the Tunisian State in the past expressing my concerns inthis regard.
[He is] concerned about an intensification of repression against LGBT human rights organisations,
including Damj, and an increase in cases of violations against members of the LGBT community following
their participation in demonstrations calling for a better social policy and denouncing repression andpolice brutality. Their exposure in the media, social networks and on the street has resulted in increased
surveillance and police harassment. Several members of the Damj association have been subjected toarbitrary arrest and detention, harassment, intimidation, online defamation and incitement to violence,
including death threats and rape, and physical and verbal attacks while exercising their rights to peacefulassembly and freedom of expression in support of the LGBT community and the feminist movement.
[He] also received many testimonies during [his] visit of violation of the right to privacy and confidentialityof personal data from the police unions. As part of the events at the beginning of this year, they also
made hate speech and calls for violence against several LGBT people on social media by exposing theiridentities, addresses and posting photos. These facts have exposed LGBT people to a flood of hate onsocial media. [He] regret[s] the lack of judicial sanctions against these serious violations of the right toprivacy and the impunity that the police unions appear to enjoy.

154

The same source noted that:
The information available to us also indicates that there is a particular obstacle to the work of LGBT
human rights defenders through random searches of their premises and the confiscation of duly
registered work equipment of organisations. Information available to the mandate indicates that evenassociations working on the STD and HIV prevention component are likely to face criminal prosecution
when working with key populations.

153

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tunisia : Harassment, Arbitrary Detention of LGBT Rights Activists, 9 March 2021
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021
154

65

I am particularly concerned about the number of LGBT activists who were arrested during the protests
that took place in early 2021 in Tunisia. There is also concern about smear and hate speech and outing
155
campaigns, particularly on social networks, particularly the pages of police unions.

In its newsletter about the week in LGBTI news (from 22-28 October 2021), ILGA World published thefollowing information from Tunisia:
In Tunisia, LGBT associations are still under attack: during the past week alone, the president of Damj wasbeaten by police officers, while the president of Shams reported being sentenced to a year of
156
imprisonment for sharing a post on Facebook.

Human Rights Watch published early 2023 the results of a study on anti-LGBT digital violence, it
reported that:In Tunisia, the government has used digital targeting to crack down on LGBT organizing and to arrest andpersecute individuals. The accounts documented in this report demonstrate the severity of digital targeting ofLGBT people in each country. The cases that are state-led apparently reflect government tactics to persecute
157
LGBT people.

The same report indicated that:In Tunisia, in addition to consequences similar to those in Lebanon [government digital targeting has resulted
in arbitrary arrests, reliance on improperly obtained personal digital information in prosecutions, and158
blackmail of LGBT people], digital targeting has resulted in government crackdowns on LGBT organizing.

VI.

Availability of State Protection

The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and found that “It is
important to note that few lawyers and legal professionals work on LGBTQ cases in these countries,
likely due to the stigma, risks, and lack of funding associated with representing such cases”.159
The same source further reported:

155

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Obstacles to the work of human rights defenders
156
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), The week in LGBTI News (22-28
October 2021), 29 October 2021
157
Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All This Terror Because of a Photo” Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequencesfor LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa, 21 February 2023
158
Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All This Terror Because of a Photo” Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequencesfor LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa, 21 February 2023
159
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 12

66

Tunisia has several laws that should, in theory, provide procedural guarantees. Article 199 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure (CCP) states that “any acts or decisions contrary to the … fundamental rules ofprocedure and the legitimate interest of the defense, are void.” Equally, Article 155 of the CCP serves torender illegally gathered reports and confessions “null and void.” However, as confirmed by interviewees,
as well as in the findings of a report by Human Right Watch, it is rare for judges to enforce theseprovisions. In the 9 Tunisian case files reviewed for this report, all included breaches of both Articles 199
and 155, and in none of these cases did the ruling reflect that the judge had invalided evidence on thatbasis.
When the interviewees were asked about warrants in Tunisia, the answer came in unison: “Impossible,
impossible, impossible. Not even once. [It] has never happened in an LGBTQ case that they actually160
waited to get a warrant to have access to this information”.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that “There is no legal protection against
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Tunisia”.161
The same source reported:[He is] deeply grateful to the civil society that supports LGTB people in Tunisia, and to the LGBT people
who shared their life experiences with me during the visit. I was able to speak with dozens of them, who
confirmed to me that despite the general legal protections for dignity and against discrimination and162
harassment, LGBT people in Tunisia face widespread violence, including death threats and rape.

The same source reported specifically on lesbian, bisexual and trans women that:
Lesbian, bisexual and trans women are not explicitly recognized in the formulation of public policies. I
note, however, of the statement by the Minister for Women, The Family and Older Persons to the effectthat the formulation of the Ministry's policies on social action and protection extends to "all women". In
practice, however, I observed that such inclusive approaches do not necessarily extend to sexual or
gender diversity. In some cases, the obstacle is legal (Law 58 limits protection against violence against
women when the perpetrator is a man, and article 3 defines a woman as a female) and in some cases it ispolitical, such as the lack of legal recognition of trans women as subjects of protection by the Ministry's
163
regional centres.
160

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 61
161
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Social exclusion practices
162
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, LGBT, queer and gender diverse people in Tunisia
163
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, LGBT, queer and gender diverse people in Tunisia

67

The US Department of State wrote in its 2022 Country Report on Tunisia:
Violence against LGBTQI+ Persons: Police and other government agents perpetrated and tolerated
violence against LGBTQI+ individuals or those reporting such abuse. LGBTQI+ individuals faced
discrimination and violence, including threats of death and rape and societal stigma; fear of prosecution
discouraged individuals from reporting violence and threats. LGBTQI+ individuals reported discriminationand harassment when seeking employment, health services, education, community interactions andinteractions from police based on their identity. [...]The law does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, orsex characteristics and does not recognize LGBTQI+ individuals, couples, or their families.[…]Involuntary or Coercive Medical or Psychological Practices Specifically Targeting LGBTQI+ Individuals: Socalled conversion therapy is not banned.

164

a. Investigation and Prosecution of Crimes Against LGBTQI+ Individuals
In its report on the state of the World’s Human Rights 2020/2021, Amnesty International wrote in thesection on Tunisia:
On 5 August, a police officer verbally abused Rania Amdouni, a feminist LGBTI rights activist and Presidentof the association Chouf Minorities, in the centre of downtown Tunis. This led to a verbal altercation
between the police officer and Rania Amdouni which attracted attention from passers-by who thenattacked her and three of her friends. The police stood by, failing to intervene to stop the attack andinciting the violence by using homophobic and transphobic insults. The four pressed charges and an
investigation was opened. Although the identity of the police officers involved was known, they were not165
suspended or arrested following the investigation.

In December 2020, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), wrote
in its annual report on the rights of homosexuals and the criminalisation of homosexual acts across theglobe that as of November 2020, the Tunisian constitution did not provide protection to LGBT
individuals, neither were they protected from discrimination in employment, from hate crimes, fromincitement to hate crimes. Furthermore Tunisia does not ban so-called ‘conversion therapies’. Same-sex
marriages are not recognized, neither are civil unions, joint adoption or second parent adoption forsame-sex parents.166

164

U.S. Department of State, Tunisia 2022 Human Rights Report –, 23 February 2023, pp. 31-32, Acts of Violence,
Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex
Characteristics
165
Amnesty International (AI), Amnesty International Report 2020/2021 – The state of the world’s human rights –Tunisia 2020, 7 April 2021
166
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), State-Sponsored Homophobia Global Legislation Overview Update 2020, December 2020, p. 326, – Table The World at a Glance - Tunisia

68

The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and stated notably about“Police stations and opportunistic prosecutions”:
In Tunisia, interviews [with 6 lawyers and one case worker conducted for the study] and case files can beused to show that the accused often comes into contact with the police because they have been thevictim of a crime. A lawyer noted that “your phone was stolen then you go to the police station to makeyour report and then [if you] look [feminine] or gay, they make the arrest.” The pretext may seem thin,
but another interviewee said that such cases “usually [pass] and they are prosecuted through Article
230.[…]In Tunisia, 3 of 9 of the cases reviewed are these such opportunistic cases where one or more of theaccused made contact with the authorities to report that they had been the victim of violence and assault.
When the investigations of their devices, persons, and private residences uncovered evidence of theirqueer identities, they were charged under Article 230, along with the perpetrators of the violence. The
victims of violence were not spared when evidence was identified regarding their sexuality. These types ofcases are so prevalent that in one of the interviews, the lawyer had one come in just the day prior:“just yesterday [an incident] like this happened. Someone got beaten up, raped, and aggressed bysomeone. They went to the police to actually let them know that they have been physically, sexually
aggressed and instead of taking his side they built up a case against him [...] because the guy actuallyshared everything about the application [Grindr], how this led [to meeting] this person, etc. thinking thatthe police is actually going to help but instead obviously they built a case against him.”
Numerous examples are given of Section 230 cases that commenced during a murder investigation, which
was then rerouted into LGBTQ-related charges. “They gathered the friends of the person who was killed
and during the testimony the inadvertently said that they know each other from this gay club that they goto and because they’re gay, etc.. So a parallel prosecution was open for them being gay.” Even if themurder charge is dropped, the LGBTQ charge remains: “Like in one case there was a murder case and theperson, one of the persons who was investigated… he said that he was gay so he was transferred in frontof the criminal court because he was transferred along with the file of the murder even though he was
not charged with murder case.”
Unfortunately, this can lead to a chilling effect within the queer community in which LGBTQ persons avoid
law enforcement whenever possible, including to report crimes committed against them. This leaves
many even more at risk of abuse and violence: “[queer people] are sometimes reluctant to go and report
something to the police whenever they have been attacked or they have been [robbed] or something likethat.” It seems in the best-case scenario, “the police do not take the case of the complaint seriously,” andmore commonly, “they can arrest him or her by forcing him to give his/her phone and start to search forevidence in order to condemn him.” The more marginalized the person or the community, the more likely
the repercussions are to be harsh and problematic: for example, refugees who must present themselvesto certain precincts or general security under their immigration protocols are at the greatest risk. One
lawyer in Lebanon noted that, “Many Syrians [go] to the general security to renew their permits … They
come in contact with a court and their phones are confiscated so they would look into their phones, and167
they would see nude pictures or conversations so they would start the process as well.”167

Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 85

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Minority Rights Group International (MRG) published a report on the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown
on the situations of minorities in Tunisia in 2021.168 Using an online translation tool, deepl.com, thefollowing information was translated from French into English:
The pandemic has worsened minorities' access to justice, which was already almost non-existent forpeople belonging to the LGBTQI+ community. Indeed, the complaints lodged on behalf of victims by
associations were not followed up. For example the complaint lodged by trans activist and president of
the president of the Outcasts organisation, Ahmed Ettounsi, after he was subjected to physical violenceby a group of unidentified individuals, who attacked him at his work his workplace in Tunis, then beat him
up and forced him to publicly disclose his gender identity. These complaints are still pending to this day,169
due in part to the backlog of courts.

No further reports were found covering or reporting on the investigation and prosecution of crimes
against LGBTQI+ individuals.

b. Fear of Reporting to Authorities
The researcher Afsaneh Rigot conducted a study for ARTICLE 19 in 2021 on the use of digital evidence bystate actors to prosecute LGBTQI individuals in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia and found that:
A repercussion of such coercive techniques by police [to obtain LGBTQ ‘suspects’ phone password uponarrest] is that victims may internalize the threats. When prosecuted, they may be reluctant to challenge
the authorities’ conduct as part of their defense, seeing it as only deepening their involvement in aprocess that may threaten their livelihood and relationships. Due to the mounting risks, many victims will
avoid further interactions with the police or law enforcement, meaning that they may decide to withdraw
170
accusations of police abuses.

From 8 to 18 June 2021, at the invitation of the State of Tunisia, the UN Independent Expert onprotection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor
Madrigal-Borloz, visited Tunisia and reported afterwards that:
Beyond the possibility of conviction, criminalisation creates a de facto situation of self-exclusion of
persons on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity from public services or access tojustice because of the fear of being accused on the basis of Articles 230 or 226 and 226a. Several reports
indicate a trend towards a reversal of the situation with regard to LGBT victims who become accused on
the basis of these articles.[…]168

See Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations withcivil society, 1 December 2021 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
169
Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Impact of Covid-19 on rights of minorities : consultations with civilsociety, 1 December 2021, p. 15 [Impact de la Covid-19 sur les droits des minorités et des populations minorées :consultation avec la société civile]
170
Article19/Afsaneh Rigot, Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the persecution of LGBTQ People in
Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, 7 March 2022, p. 68

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Most victims do not file complaints for fear of being prosecuted for homosexuality, indecent assault or
public indecent assault. Those who do so reported particularly traumatic episodes of humiliation, insults,
violence and sometimes even criminalization.[…]Difficulty or even impossibility of access to justice: when they are victims of violations of their rights, LGBT
people often refrain from filing a complaint for fear of becoming perpetrators. Several people have been
incriminated for homosexuality, indecent assault, insulting a public official, prostitution or public indecent
assault following the filing of a complaint.
Once they are "registered" as a member of the community, LGBT people find themselves caught in a spiralthat makes their access to justice even more difficult as agents in the criminal justice chain transpose
dominant social and moral prejudices to punish their identity.

171

Human Rights Watch published early 2023 the results of a study on anti-LGBT digital violence in Egypt,
Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Tunisia, and found that:
These five governments in the region are also failing to hold private actors to account for their digital targetingof LGBT people. Most LGBT people interviewed for this report said that they would not report a crime to theauthorities, either because of previous attempts in which the complaint was dismissed or no action was taken
or because they felt they would be blamed for the crime due to their non-conforming sexual orientation,
gender identity, or expression. As mentioned above, six people who reported being extorted to the authorities
172
ended up getting arrested themselves.

171

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Preliminary observations on thevisit to Tunisia by the Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity, 18 June 2021, Institutional violence
172
Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All This Terror Because of a Photo” Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequencesfor LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa, 21 February 2023

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