TUNIS: Human Rights Watch on Friday urged Tunisia to extend the mandate of a commission set up to examine human rights violations during six decades of dictatorship.
The widely-praised Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD) was set up following the 2011 revolt that toppled dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.
Tunisia’s parliament is set to vote on Saturday whether to prolong its work.
But HRW’s Tunisia director, Amna Guellali, accused Tunisian authorities of hampering the commission “by refusing to fully cooperate with it and by adopting a controversial law on administrative reconciliation.”
“By voting ‘no’ to extending the commission’s work, parliament would be voting ‘yes’ for impunity,” she said in a statement.
The commission has a five-year mandate to investigate human rights violations between 1957, when Habib Bourguiba became president, and 2013, when the IVD was set up in the wake of the revolution.
It aims to hold perpetrators to account and rehabilitate their victims.
A “no” vote on Saturday could force it to cease work in May.
That “would sabotage the fragile transitional justice process and trample the rights of victims to truth, justice and reparations,” Guellali said.
HRW urges Tunisia to extend rights commission’s mandate
HRW urges Tunisia to extend rights commission’s mandate
Syrian government and SDF agree to de-escalate after Aleppo violence
- Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement
DAMASCUS: Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed to de-escalate on Monday evening in the northern city of Aleppo, after a wave of attacks that both sides blamed on each other left at least two civilians dead and several wounded.
Syria’s state news agency SANA, citing the defense ministry, said the army’s general command issued an order to stop targeting the SDF’s fire sources. The SDF said in a statement later that it had issued instructions to stop responding to attacks by Syrian government forces following de-escalation contacts.
The Syrian health ministry said two people were killed and several were wounded in shelling by the SDF on residential neighborhoods in the city. The injuries included two children and two civil defense workers. The violence erupted hours after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a visit to Damascus that the SDF appeared to have no intention of honoring a commitment to integrate into the state’s armed forces by an agreed year-end deadline.
Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement.
Integrating the SDF would mend Syria’s deepest remaining fracture, but failing to do so risks an armed clash that could derail the country’s emergence from 14 years of war and potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
Both sides have accused the other of stalling and acting in bad faith. The SDF is reluctant to give up autonomy it won as the main US ally during the war, which left it with control of Islamic State prisons and rich oil resources.
SANA, citing the defense ministry, reported earlier that the SDF had launched a sudden attack on security forces and the army in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods of Aleppo, resulting in injuries.
The SDF denied this and said the attack was carried out by factions affiliated with the Syrian government. It said those factions were using tanks and artillery against residential neighborhoods in the city.
The defense ministry denied the SDF’s statements, saying the army was responding to sources of fire from Kurdish forces. “We’re hearing the sounds of artillery and mortar shells, and there is a heavy army presence in most areas of Aleppo,” an eyewitness in Aleppo told Reuters earlier on Monday. Another eyewitness said the sound of strikes had been very strong and described the situation as “terrifying.”
Aleppo’s governor announced a temporary suspension of attendance in all public and private schools and universities on Tuesday, as well as government offices within the city center.
