Tunisia's LGBTQ Community: Police Brutality and COVID-19 Repression
In Tunisia, the only democratic success story of the Arab Spring, the LGBTQ community faces escalating police brutality and systematic persecution that intensified dramatically during COVID-19 restrictions. This documentary photography project, published in VICE News, exposes how pandemic measures provided cover for increased crackdowns on sexual and gender minorities in North Africa's most progressive nation.
The investigation documents the experiences of key LGBTQ rights activists including Ahmed El Tounsi, founder of trans rights organization OutCasts, human rights activist Amani Mkaouer, and transgender activist Jade, revealing how COVID-19 lockdowns and emergency powers enabled unprecedented levels of state violence against Tunisia's LGBTQ community. Through intimate portraits and testimonies, the work captures a community under siege.
According to Human Rights Watch documentation, police specifically targeted known LGBTQ activists during mass anti-government protests in 2021, subjecting them to arbitrary arrests, physical assault, blocked legal aid access, and threats of rape and murder. The human rights organization recorded five times more cases requiring legal assistance in 2020 compared to 2019, with 116 cases at police stations and 185 legal consultation requests.
This photojournalism investigation captures the brutal reality of Tunisia's Article 230, which criminalizes same-sex relations with up to three years imprisonment, and Article 226, which penalizes "attacks on public morals." These laws enable prosecution based on non-normative appearance or behavior, creating a legal framework for systematic discrimination against sexual and gender minorities.
The project documents specific incidents of police violence, including the August 2020 attack near the French embassy in Tunis, where officers beat transgender activists while shouting "Kill them, they are sodomites," inciting bystanders to join the violence. Ahmed El Tounsi, who suffered internal bleeding from police beatings, was subsequently refused treatment at three hospitals due to anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Through documentary photography, the work reveals how COVID-19 restrictions devastated Tunisia's LGBTQ community economically and socially. Lockdown measures trapped LGBTQ individuals with unsupportive families, eliminated safe spaces, and disrupted access to hormone treatments and psychological support. Night curfews and venue closures eliminated the few LGBTQ-friendly spaces where community members could gather safely.
The investigation exposes an online disinformation campaign orchestrated through Facebook pages affiliated with Tunisia's police unions, featuring photographs of LGBTQ activists and inciting violence against them. This digital persecution campaign demonstrates how authorities weaponized social media to target sexual and gender minorities.
From El Tounsi's one-bedroom apartment where he sheltered 2-11 displaced LGBTQ people during lockdown, to Mkaouer's daily harassment during police stops, to Jade's struggle with family rejection and transition during isolation, this project captures the intersection of state violence, family rejection, economic hardship, and health care discrimination faced by Tunisia's LGBTQ community.
The work examines how Tunisia's constitutional protections for privacy and non-discrimination (Articles 24 and 21) remain unenforced for sexual and gender minorities, creating a gap between legal rights and lived reality. Despite Tunisia's reputation as the Arab world's most liberal society, LGBTQ individuals face systematic persecution that intensified under pandemic emergency powers.
Through collaborations with local organizations including Mawjoudin and Damj, this documentation reveals the resilience of Tunisia's LGBTQ movement despite escalating repression. The project captures both the immediate crisis facing the community and the longer-term struggle for decriminalization and equal rights in post-Arab Spring Tunisia.
Tunisia, 2020-2021.
This investigation into police brutality against Tunisia's LGBTQ community was published in VICE News as part of comprehensive international coverage of human rights violations and COVID-19 impacts on sexual and gender minorities in North Africa. Done with Alessandra Bajec.
