Tunisia Live (Tunis)
Hend Hassassi
30 December 2011
To many, Ali Laarayedh’s appointment as the new Minister of Interior in the coalition government came as a surprise, especially considering Laaryedh’s bitter history with the ministry.
A fervent oppositional figure during Ben Ali’s regime, Laarayedh was detained and tortured by the Ministry of Interior on numerous occasions. It is said that at times, his captors even threatened to inject him with toxic substances and HIV viruses.
“I almost died several times in the cells of the Ministry of the Interior. However, I can differentiate between that period and now. The revolution is a step forward that aims to implement transitional justice and not revenge,” Laarayedh told AFP.
For many Tunisians, the Interior Ministry is a symbol of the old regime’s tyrannical grip over the country. Located in downtown Tunis on the main strip, Habib Bourguiba Avenue, it was a place where many faced persecution solely because of their political orientation. It is well-documented that innumerable human rights violations were systematically committed within this institution.
“The interior ministry should have been an institution that ensured people’s security. However, its role was subverted by two oppressive regimes into an inhumane establishment,” stated Sihem Ben Sedrine, a prominent Tunisian human rights activist.
Bilel Chawachee, a salafist, explained how many Tunisians were arrested for no legitimate reason. “I was harassed just for having a long beard and for discussing the regime and Islamic laws in cafes with friends. The interior ministry is the locus of evil in Tunisia,” Chawachee said.
Detainees were often brutalized and tortured within the ministry as punishment or as a method of extracting information. The ministry’s new head, Ali Laaraydeh, was personally subject to torture numerous times in the building he now manages.
Chawachee was also subject to torture, both physical and psychological, while held at the ministry. Police officers would curse his family members, insult his faith, and tell him that he was merely an insect. “I was tortured for several days there. They would bind my hands and feet together, string me up naked on a rod attached to the ceiling, and beat me brutally. Often other detainees would admit to crimes that they never committed just so that the torture would stop,” said Chawachee.
On January 14, 2011, a massive protest assembled in front of the ministry calling for nothing less than the deposition of the Ben Ali regime. That very same day, the former president fled the country with his family, immortalizing the ministry building as the Tunisian revolution’s ground-zero.
In an interview aired yesterday on Tunisian national TV, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali stated that reform in the internal security sector is one of his government’s highest priorities. The statement given by Laarayedh to AFP echoed the prime minister’s position, asserting that, “The wave of reform will start from the Interior Ministry.”
Laarayedh’s arrival in the Ministry of Interior on December 27, 2011, was met with a warm welcome by high officials there. He received bouquets of flowers, messages of congratulations, and gifts at the handover ceremony. Following his arrest in December 1990, Laarayedh served a sentence of 15 years in prison, 13 of which he spent in solitary confinement at the “April 9â-‘ prison in Tunis.
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