President of the Truth and Dignity Commission, Sihem Ben Sedrine, addresses the media during a press conference held in Tunis, Tunisia. Picture by Ali Mhadhbi AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.The 17th of November 2016 marks a liminal moment in Tunisian post-revolutionary history: the Truth and Dignity Commission performed the first set of public hearings in the country’s transitional justice process. With the absence of the President and the Prime Minister, seven victims of four different kinds of violations took the opportunity to share their stories with the public, both on site and in front of the television.
Broadcast live at primetime on national television, the hearings were taking place at “Club Elyssa” in Tunis’s Sidi Dhrif suburb, which in the past belonged to former President Ben Ali’s wife Leila (née Trabelsi). The venue represents her centre of power, where she was pulling strings in politics and economy, prompting the Truth and Dignity Commission’s President Sihem Ben Sedrine to draw a comparison with the Nazis being held accountable in Nuremberg. Given the great resentment Tunisians bear towards the predatory economic activities of the ‘Trabelsi clan’, the symbolic value of the venue may well be significant.
The testimonies presented to the public, carefully chosen from tens of thousands of cases filed with the commission, covered a wide range of historical ground and reflect well the enormous mandate of the Truth and Dignity Commission, dealing with almost 60 years of violent past. Victims who shared their stories came from different parts of the country, suffered different kinds of abuse at different points in time.
