In September 2017, Tunisia’s minister for human rights, Mehdi Ben Gharbia, said the country would ban forced anal examinations to determine sexuality, but that suspects can still be asked to undergo a test. Such tests are recognised by the UN as a cruel and degrading treatment which can amount to a practice of torture.
Instead of treating him as a victim, officers instead ordered an anal test to determine whether he was “used to practising sodomy”. To receive medical treatment, he was required to file a complaint of gang-rape to the police. Two other men arrived, who beat and raped KS. The man invited KS to his house, where he showed him a police badge. In one case, a 32-year-old man, known as KS, said he was gang-raped after meeting a man he had spoken to on Grindr. In 11 cases reviewed by the group, men were mistreated in police custody, forced to make confessions and denied access to legal counsel. Last week, HRW warned police are using anal tests and confiscating men’s phones to gather evidence for prosecutions. “It is a step forward but there is still a lot of work to be done.”
But it doesn’t mean we will have a law,” said Guellali. “This is something big that we didn’t envisage years ago. The draft legislation was welcomed as a breakthrough by LGBT rights campaigners, though it is feared the proposals are unlikely to gain support from conservative politicians.
