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Tunis, August 12, 2020 —As the world today commemorates International Youth Day and Tunisia observes it National Women’s Day on August 13, ICTJ is launching the Voices of Memory virtual tour, in partnership with the Voices of Memory Collective, an intergenerational group of Tunisian women, and the University of Birmingham. The result of a collaboration between the Voices of Memory Collective and Tunisian artists, the virtual tour allows visitors to explore and interact with an online version of the widely successful Voices of Memory exhibition that traveled throughout Tunisia in 2018.

Tunis, July 10, 2020—The Truth and Dignity Commission’s (TDC) final report was at last published on June 24, six year after the TDC began its work. It marks an important milestone in Tunisia’s transition, but the journey ahead to justice and democracy is a long one. Policymakers and practitioners now have the responsibility to take the next step forward.

Tunis—On March 2-3, 2020, ICTJ is holding a conference in Tunis, Tunisia, on the fight against corruption and the recovery of ill-gotten assets as a critical element of transitional justice processes. The conference will bring together activists, policymakers, and experts from Tunisia and other countries in the global South emerging from conflict or authoritarian rule, including Armenia, The Gambia, Kenya, the Philippines, and South Africa.

Youth activists in Tunisia have played a vital role in keeping corruption at the center of public debate since the country's revolution in 2011. Through decentralized, nationwide protest movements, young Tunisians have been calling for measures that root out systems of endemic corruption. ICTJ sat down with one youth leader to discuss her activism and views on Tunisia's transitional justice process.

Recently, Tunisia held its third parliamentary elections since the revolution and the second presidential elections since late President Béji Caid Essebssi passed away on July 25, 2019. It remains to be seen if the election’s results will usher in a new era of dignity, for which Tunisians took the streets in 2010 and 2011.

Tunis—Youth activists from across Tunisia, representatives of state institutions, and experts from international nongovernmental organizations gathered on July 10, 2019, to discuss challenges to pursuing accountability for corruption crimes committed during the Ben Ali dictatorship and practical steps that civil society and government can take to overcome these challenges.

ICTJ’s Gender Symposium, held on February 2 to 4, 2019, in Tunis, Tunisia, brought together fearless women leaders working in 8 countries to advance the needs of victims and to bring gender issues to the center of transitional justice processes. What was achieved? What experiences cut across these diverse contexts? Kelli Muddell and Sibley Hawkins reflect on these questions and more in this short podcast.

As the work of Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission winds down, ICTJ's Salwa El Gantri and Kelli Muddell discuss some of the challenges and successes of its work and their vision for transparent, participatory processes to advance Tunisia’s transitional justice mandate in the short and long term.

ICTJ's Virginie Ladisch spoke with Heythem Guesmi, a young Tunisian activist who is fighting systemic oppression, economic exclusion, and impunity that persist despite the Revolution’s initial success, and Thenjiwe McHarris, a young organizer working with Black Lives Matter in the United States—a movement whose urgency also stems from historic marginalization leading to widespread impunity and systematic failures in law enforcement.

TUNIS—ICTJ hosted a conference on May 2 and 3 to address the current challenges facing Tunisia’s Specialized Criminal Chambers (SCC) as it proceeds to adjudicate cases of serious human rights violations committed under the former regime. The 90 guests who attended included members of Tunisia’s Truth...

Members of parliament from political parties opposed to extending the work of Tunisia’s truth commission today voted to end the commission’s mandate. This came after parliamentarians from parties that support the extension walked out of the proceedings because their position is that the Organic Law that created the Truth and Dignity Commission (TDC or Instance Vérité et Dignité in French) authorized the TDC to extend its mandate. Earlier, the TDC had voted to extend its mandate by a year in order to complete its work. In a position paper distributed to members of parliament and civil society activists, ICTJ and the Victims’ Coalition for Dignity and Rehabilitation jointly said that they supported the extension of the TDC’s mandate, despite internal issues among its commissioners. ICTJ pointed out that other truth commissions elsewhere have sought and been given extensions in order to carry out key parts of their work, such as public hearings, or to complete writing their reports. Both ICTJ and the Victims’ Coalition said that an extension would allow the TDC to hold public hearings on marginalization and unemployment – which was one of the grievances that drove the Arab Spring in Tunisia. It would also give the Commission time to finalize its report and recommendations, including those on reparations.

On Friday, the United Nations hailed the progress made since 2014 in Tunisia in terms of transitional justice, underlining the importance of “enabling the transitional justice process to achieve its objectives." "The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tunis, Diego Zorilla, congratulates all...

The International Center for Transitional Justice denounces the passage of Tunisia’s deeply flawed “Administrative Reconciliation” law, which grants amnesty to public officials who were involved in corruption during the dictatorship but who claim they did not personally gain from it.

Ongoing economic and social inequality, a legacy of the dictatorship, affects Tunisians across generations, but has particularly pronounced impacts on young people. ICTJ worked with four young photographers to confront the consequences of marginalization and explore its impacts on Tunisian youth. Their four photo galleries comprise the exhibition "Marginalization in Tunisia: Images of an Invisible Repression.”

The International Center for Transitional Justice today repeated the call for the withdrawal of the revamped “Economic Reconciliation” Draft Law. As one of the key expert organizations that has supported the transitional process in Tunisia since its inception, ICTJ has opposed the flawed “Economic Reconciliation” Draft Law since it was first presented in 2015, because its provisions undermine key goals of transitional justice: accountability, truth and reform.

This is the third time that the Tunisian government, supported by several Members of Parliament, has put debate of the National Reconciliation Law on the political agenda. Rearranged in form but with the same substantial faults, this law has mobilized the opposition — for the third time — of approximately 20 civil society organizations that met yesterday and plan to soon hold a press conference.

Tunisian activists have taken to the streets this month to protest the proposed Economic Reconciliation Law recently revived in parliament. If approved, the bill would offer a path for corrupt Ben Ali-era officials and business people to legalize their stolen assets and secure a form of amnesty.

The Tunisian government reintroduced a bill that, if passed, would grant a path for reconciliation to corrupt business people and Ben Ali-era officials. They claim it will stimulate the economy, but economics professor Dr. Abdeljelil Bédoui explains why this law is not the solution.

ICTJ joins groups calling for an anti-terrorism approach that respects citizens' rights in Tunisia. “Institutional reform can be a strong tool to prevent recurrence of human rights abuses and build a strong and credible democracy in Tunisia," said Salwa El Gantri, ICTJ Head of Office in Tunisia. "The current transitional justice process aims to shed light on similar violations that took place under the dictatorship, and we don’t want them to be committed again under the ‘fight against terrorism’ slogan.”

ICTJ welcomes the award of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize to Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet for helping the country transition to democracy. With the award, the Nobel committee acknowledges the "decisive contribution" made by the group of civil society organizations after Tunisia’s 2011 revolution.

ICTJ President David Tolbert will be a featured speaker at this year’s Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, Qatar. Al Jazeera Forum is the flagship event of Al Jazeera Media Network, at which Al Jazeera showcases its contribution to the world of media and politics.