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TunisiaProsecutions dropped in an emblematic trial of the LGBTQ cause
Daniel was arrested in 2015, accused of “sodomy”, a crime punishable in Tunisia according to an article of law dating from 1913. The charges were dropped due to a procedural flaw.
A Tunisian Court of Appeal has ruled “null and void” the proceedings against a queer activist in a trial emblematic of the LGBTQ cause, an NGO and a judicial spokesperson announced on Tuesday. The decision in the so-called “students of Kairouan” case only concerns Daniel, the nickname of the activist present at the hearing on December 19, the five other Tunisian defendants having found asylum abroad. “It’s a victory for Daniel and for us,” welcomed the Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality (Damj) in a message to AFP.
Article of law dating back to 1913
The case dates back to 2015 when six students were arrested on charges of “sodomy”, before being sentenced to three years in prison and banned from the Kairouan region for another three years. The following year, their sentence was reduced on appeal to 40 days in detention, but in 2018 the Court of Cassation reversed this verdict and again referred the case to appeal.
About thirty activists of the LGBTQ cause had gathered on the day of the appeal trial before the Kairouan court, at the call of Damj and the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH). They had called for “removing the article of shame”, in reference to article 230 of the penal code which punishes homosexual acts with a sentence of up to three years in prison. Article 230 dates back to 1913, under French colonization, but was retained in legislation after independence in 1956.
Procedural defect
This law also provides for an anal test, performed by forensic doctors, denounced as “degrading and inhuman” by several NGOs who are calling for its abolition. “For the first time”, according to Damj, the prosecution requested on December 19 that the results of the anal tests be excluded from the prosecution file.
The charges were dropped due to a procedural defect “because the police had opened Daniel’s computer” without judicial authorization, the spokesman for the Kairouan Court of Appeal told AFP. ), Riadh Ben Halima.
Since the 2011 revolution, LGBT+ activists have emerged from the shadows in Tunisia, but their condition remains precarious, due to this repressive legislation and still violent social rejection.
(AFP)