Graffiti in Sidi Bouzid — the cradle of the Arab Spring — depicting a man turning into a bird to symbolise freedom, as seen in October 2020
Credit: FETHI BELAID /AFP
When Myriam Bribri first got a call in October telling her to hand herself in immediately for investigation over a Facebook post, she thought it was a prank.
“It made me laugh,” the Tunisian activist and designer told The Telegraph from her hometown of Sfax, an ancient port city.
But just a few days later, Ms Bribri, 33, received an official written summons over the post, which showed a video of a policeman beating someone up she shared with the comment: “Cursed be the best of you bastards.”
Within 24 hours, she had been questioned, detained and taken to court for posting “offensive” material online, a charge that could lead to up to two years in jail.
Ms Bribri’s case is not unique. Activists and rights groups in Tunisia say there has been a worrying rise in the number of people being prosecuted for social media posts critical of the security forces or state figures.
“It’s not proportional and it’s illegitimate,” Ms Bribri said.
Her hearing was supposed to be this week but has since been delayed with no new date. The charge stands.
A recent Amnesty report found that at least 40 bloggers, administrators of widely followed Facebook pages, political activists and human rights defenders have faced criminal prosecution between 2018 and 2020. In October, Amnesty documented at least five people summoned for investigation after criticising security forces online.
The spike in cases is fuelling fears that, 10 years on from the momentous protest movement that unseated longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring, basic rights and freedoms are once again under threat in the former police state.
Protesters demonstrate against Ben Ali in Tunis back in January 2011
Credit: ZOHRA BENSEMRA /REUTERS
The stakes are high. Tunisia is the only Arab country to have emerged from those region-changing demonstrations as a democracy. But protests have flared again in recent weeks over many of the same issues that first sparked unrest: high unemployment, poor state services, and a sluggish economy.
December 17 marks the anniversary of Mohammed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in the central city of Sidi Bouzid after his street cart was confiscated by police. That city has recently seen queues and scuffles over access to cooking gas, underlining the hardships ordinary people continue to face in Tunisia.
Now it seems as if one of the few gains – freedom of speech – is at risk of slipping away.
“Seeing people being arrested by police a few hours after they posted on Facebook something critical of police conduct or ‘insulting’ to the security institutions is definitely reminiscent of pre-2011 times,” said Fida Hammami, Amnesty’s Tunisia researcher.
“We have been documenting more and more of these sorts of cases and we have also noticed a decreased tolerance to criticism among authorities.
“In terms of rights and freedoms, it’s undeniable that the situation has improved drastically since 2011,” she added. “But we’re not there yet; a lot of reform is still lagging and there are still some archaic laws being used.”
One particularly notorious piece of legislation regularly used is the Telecommunications Code’s Article 86, under which Ms Bribri has been charged.
Dating back to 2001, it criminalises anything posted online that “intends to offend others or disturb their comfort” with sentences of up to two years in prison.
Amnesty says it is among a number of “outdated, overly broad and repressive” laws being used to “stifle” free speech.
The Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
For Imed Ben Khoud, the issue is clear: “Freedom of expression is really under threat here.”
The 30-year-old activist and events organiser from Kairouan, one of Islam’s holy cities, has been summoned for investigation five times over online posts and says he knows dozens of others who have had similar problems.
The most recent charges, also under Article 86, were over a cartoon Mr Ben Khoud shared in early October on Facebook that depicted police officers as dogs and the Ministry of Interior as a dog house (pictured above).
He was detained in a dark cell for hours before being questioned and freed, but the charges remain.
“I wasn’t surprised when I was summoned by the police because I know very well that they have never respected freedom of expression,” he said.
The police are a particular sore point for many Tunisians. They are seen as responsible for carrying out most of the human rights abuses that marked Ben Ali’s nearly 25 years in power and have largely escaped the kind of change seen elsewhere since his ouster.
A recent draft bill proposing immunity for security forces in case of accusations of excessive or lethal force against citizens met with vociferous opposition from civil society, with the anti-police acronym ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) popping up on protest placards and online posts.
A demonstrator argues with a policeman during a protest in Tunis in January 2011
Credit: FRED DUFOUR /AFP
The bill has since been indefinitely delayed – though not killed completely.
Several people from those protests are now being investigated. In many of the cases where criticism of state security forces is punished, Amnesty says, the officers themselves file charges, leaving many questioning whether Tunisia is at risk of becoming a police state again.
“The police state never really left, so we can’t talk of it returning,” said Ms Bribri. “But I’m not afraid to keep posting.”
“The revolution is a journey … we will continue our resistance for a Tunisia without dictatorship or violence.”
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