TUNESS organized with the kind support of the Columbia Society of International Law (CSIL) a round table discussion on the topic of police torture in Tunisia. We’re honored to have three distinguished guest speakers; Ms. Tamara Alrifai, Advocacy and Communications Director, the Middle East/North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch, Mr. Bassam Bouguerra co-founder of the NGO “Tunisian Institutional reform” and Mr. Sami Ben Gharbia, Co-founder of Nawaat and Tunileaks. Our guests are expected to share their respective experiences with cases of torture practices and human rights violations in today’s Tunisia and will provide us with concrete proposals to reform the police system.
This event should be of interest to people from all nationalities and transcends the borders of Tunisia as it examines Tunisia as a case study for police reform and looks at ways and means to make torture a thing of the past.
As TUNESS organizing Committee, we will be happy and honored to invite all of you to this event and we hope that your presence and contribution will enrich the debate and help us formulate recommendations to make police torture history in Tunisia.
Tamara Alrifai is MENA’s Advocacy and Communications Director at Human Rights Watch. Tamara has worked for over a decade with the International Committee of the Red Cross in various positions, most recently as their Delegate and Spokesperson for the United Nations, in New York, and prior to that as Head of Media and Communications in Sudan, Head of Regional Communications in Cairo, and Spokesperson in Geneva, Kuwait, and Nepal. Tamara received her BA in Political Science from the American University in Beirut and her MA in International Studies from the University of Birmingham.
Sami Ben Gharbia is a Tunisian blogger, writer, and freedom of expression advocate. He was a political refugee living in the Netherlands between 1998 and 2011. Author of the first Tunisian e-book (in French) Borj Erroumi XL. Founding Director of Global Voices Advocacy; Founder of Threatened Voices Project; Co-Founder Of The Arab Techies Collective; Co-Founder Of The Tunisian Award-Winning Collective Blog Nawaat; Co-Organizer Of The Arab Bloggers.
Bassem Bouguerra is a Human Rights activist, blogger, founder and executive director of the NGO (non-governmental organization): "Tunisian Institutional Reform"(TIR). The overall goal of TIR is to push for institutional transparency and accountability while encouraging civil society to take a proactive role in political decision making and reform through constructively engaging in dialogue with official bodies. Tunisian Institutional Reform aims to bridge the gap between society and government and to promote dialogue between the two as a basis for reform.
Links to the Event Press Releases:
http://www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2012/12/18/radioscopie-de-la-torture-policiere-en-tunisie/
http://nawaat.org/portail/2012/12/19/can-police-torture-be-history-in-tunisia/