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
Gaza access: Foreign press group welcomes Israel court deadline
- The Foreign Press Association, which represents hundreds of foreign journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, filed a petition to the Supreme Court last year, seeking immediate access for international journalists to the Gaza Strip
JERUSALEM: The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem on Sunday welcomed the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to set Jan. 4 as the deadline for Israel to respond to its petition seeking media access to Gaza.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, sparked by the attack on Israel, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from independently entering the devastated territory.
Israel has instead allowed, on a case-by-case basis, a handful of reporters to accompany its troops into the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents hundreds of foreign journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, filed a petition to the Supreme Court last year, seeking immediate access for international journalists to the Gaza Strip.
On Oct. 23, the court held its first hearing in the case and gave Israeli authorities one month to develop a plan to grant access.
Since then, the court has granted several extensions to the Israeli authorities to develop their plan, but on Saturday, it set Jan. 4 as the final deadline.
“If the respondents (Israeli authorities) do not inform us of their position by that date, a decision on the request for a conditional order will be made on the basis of the material in the case file,” the court said.
The FPA welcomed the court’s latest directive.
“After two years of the state’s delay tactics, we are pleased that the court’s patience has finally run out,” the association said in a statement.
“We renew our call for the state of Israel to immediately grant journalists free and unfettered access to the Gaza Strip.
“And should the government continue to obstruct press freedoms, we hope that the Supreme Court will recognize and uphold those freedoms,” it added.
An AFP journalist serves on the FPA board.
Meanwhile, US Senator Lindsey Graham accused Hamas of rearming during a visit to Israel on Sunday, and charged that the Palestinian group was also consolidating power in Gaza.
“My impression is that Hamas is not disarming, they are rearming,” Graham said in a video statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
“It’s my impression that they are trying to consolidate power (and) not give it up in Gaza.”
Graham’s remarks came a day after mediators the US, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkiye urged both sides in the Gaza war to uphold the ceasefire.
Hamas has called on the mediators and Washington to stop Israeli “violations” of the ceasefire.
On Friday, six people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli bombing of a school serving as a shelter for displaced people, according to the civil defense agency in Gaza.
