. Socially vulnerable groups were more affected in all societies, and Tunisia was not immune from this crisis, as the Tunisian government announced the imposition of a comprehensive quarantine starting from March 22,2020, which left a social and economic crisis after the closure of many livelihoods for millions of Tunisians. In the light of this, the whole country witnessed a broad solidarity movement led by civil society organizations, not to mention individual solidarity initiatives. In the context of this pandemic, ATTALAKI Association observed complete disregard by state institutions for the status of religious minorities. The state did not provide any assistance or support or ask about their conditions. Whereas, the official state institution represented by the Minister of Religious Affairs confined itself to contacting Christian and Jewish religious leaders to thank them for their response to the comprehensive closure measures that affected all worship centers. On the one hand, the media arena and publicity flashes related to health recommendations to confront the pandemic remained the preserve of the Islamic religion alone, even those that have a religious character. On the other hand, ATTALAKI noted a full commitment to government decisions, including the closure of places of worship, which include churches and temples, while this closure was violated in several mosques. Meanwhile, religious communities (Christians, Jews, Bahais, and Shiites) have taken the initiative to provide aid and donate to the 1818 Fund established by the government. And following the complete lifting of the comprehensive quarantine in June, the ATTALAKI in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, held on July 10, 2020, a discussion circle that brought together representatives of all religions and with the participation of speakers from Jordan51 and Saudi Arabia to study the social and spiritual effects of the Corona crisis on society, and the interventions were between those who expressed satisfaction with the government’s response to this crisis and among those who denounced the inequality in dealing with different members of society, especially at the level of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which some considered an Islamic ministry primarily.

Among the most important outcomes of this meeting is the agreement to form a crisis cell and a database for volunteers of all religions and sects to work together, present and in the future, in addressing emergency crises. The importance of social cohesion, which is an essential feature that members of society must possess regardless of their differences, was emphasized. For the concept presented by Ibn Khaldun on social solidarity, which he called “asabiyya” and considered it the basic building block of human society and the driving force of the wheel of humanity. The participants also stressed that the values of solidarity must be comprehensive and not linked to specific sects, but on the contrary, they must include all those affected by the crisis regardless of their beliefs, and it was insisted upon that solidarity should be a permanent characteristic, like daily worship, and not in an occasional manner.

Our colleague Ghassan Ayari, Public Relations and Partnerships Officer, addressed what was mentioned in the annual report on religious freedom, which was published by the Religious Freedom Committee of Attalaki earlier this year, in addition to the following points:

• Chapter 39 of the Constitution of January 27, 2014, states that the Tunisian state is “working to root the youth in its Arab and Islamic identity,” as we note that this chapter constitutes discrimination and prejudices freedom of thought and exclusion of the multicultural nature and religious diversity of our society, whether in the past or the present. Emphasizing that restricting the Tunisian identity to its Arab-Islamic character represents an obstacle to consolidating the value of diversity and cultural and intellectual richness.

• Shedding light on the issue of the lack of non-Islamic cemeteries for non-Muslim Tunisian citizens, and on the latest agreement reached with the relevant authorities. The attacks on Christian cemeteries were also discussed, without taking any serious decision to prevent their sabotage or harm.

• The conversation also touched on calls for violence and hate speech directed at non-Muslim Tunisians and others under the dome of Parliament, where we presented the most important statement of several deputies, similar to what was said by the representative of the Democratic Current, Mohamed Ammar, who described the Jewish religious temples in Tunisia as Zionism, calling for their use as a “political pressure card. on Israel”.

As part of the Attalaki cooperation with diplomatic missions accredited to Tunisia, our Public Relations and Partnerships officer, Ghassen Ayari met with Mr. ASHWANDEN Tom, head of the Governance section, and Mister ACOSTA SOTO Francisco, deputy head of mission of the European Union delegation in Tunisia, where we tackled various points, most importantly:

* Our organization’s current and future programs and activities.

* Individual freedoms in relation to the national political scene.

* The Attalaki Religious Freedom Committee Report.

Mr. ASHWANDEN Tom expressed his support to the civil society in Tunisia and for all the work that is being implemented in the field of human rights and individual freedoms.

There are 2 types of cultures:

1. A culture of development or advancement which promotes development. A culture that gives priority to the mind to achieve and invent the above traditions and enhances the understanding in which human beings are capable of creating a world they dream of or by their determinant wills able to choose and without imposed restrictions.

2. A culture of regression that reduces the dreams of development, tradition, making distinctions between people, anti-feminist in every way and antagonistic to individual rights of thought and expression and the right to be different in any way.

And although the Arab world has included numerous cultural patterns where we see a mix of ancient civilizations in the Arab West, ex. Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians and Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In Egypt, we see a mix of Pharaonic, Jewish, Greek, Christian, Roman, and Islamic influences. In Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine we see a Phoenician, Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mix. But the attempts of rules to uphold only one influence and one voice will inevitably lead to a conflict of cultures resulting in future wars between confused followers.

Culture and Development

Does culture have a role in development?
How does culture affect development?
What is the nature of this influence?

Why can Southern India feed 385 persons per square kilometer whereas equatorial Africa that God has blessed with abundant rain and fertile land, similar to India in climate and land formation and variation of inhabitants, is unable to feed 14 of its inhabitants per square kilometer?

International and scientific studies have determined that self-sufficiency in development is tied to social and national cultures as well as the general policies of the state, much more than dependence on financial status and resources alone.

The cultural and religious reference frames clearly affect economies (i.e.: paying taxes and avoiding paying them/ respecting promises and contracts). Traditional societies always resort to a refusal of anything new or different, and that is the reason for the failure of many development projects.

Therefore, cultural diversity provides an appropriate grounding for development and the major challenge lies in convincing the architects of political decision-making and those who implement such decisions to incorporate the principles of cultural variation and those varied cultural norms in the political collective and implementation of such principles in public life.

In our Arab world in particular we need to encourage cultural variance because there is no way to develop and move forward except through acceptance of our cultural variance, and this will not occur without respecting these collective principles and we cannot pick and choose one over another.

1. Respecting human rights
2. Respecting freedom of belief and expression of opinion
3. Separating faith from politics. Religion is a personal relationship with God whereas politics is the relationship between individuals, societies, or states
4. Declaration of the rule of law and recognition of equality before the law
5. Democracy becomes the basis of systems of government

This article states that “the state is the guardian of religion, guarantees freedom of belief and conscience and the practice of religious rites, and guarantees the impartiality of mosques and places of worship from party employment. The state is committed to spreading the values of moderation and tolerance and to protect sacred things and prevent them from being undermined, and it is also committed to preventing and confronting accusations of apostasy and incitement to hatred and violence.”

This article is considered a qualitative leap and a constitutional revolution in the fullest sense of the word, as Tunisia’s 2014 constitution is the first constitution for an Arab country to explicitly enshrine freedom of conscience.

Freedom of conscience is one of the basic individual freedoms and a fundamental human right and means that a person has the right to believe what his conviction dictates and this opens the way for making choices among contradictory things in the intellectual, philosophical, religious, artistic, etc… 

In this sense, freedom of conscience falls within the domain of independence enjoyed by the citizen vis-à-vis the state and society. This is what Benjamin Kinston expresses as the freedom of independence. Freedom of conscience is related to other rights and freedoms that are associated with it, perhaps the most important of which is freedom of thought, which explains why the Tunisian constitution stipulates in Article 31 that “freedom of opinion, thought, expression, information, and publishing is guaranteed.”

It is not permissible to survey these freedoms, as freedom of conscience is complementary to freedom of thought. This is since freedom of thought is comprehensive general freedom that includes the freedoms of scientific and academic thought, philosophical consideration, and religious contemplation, freedom of belief, production, and artistic creation.

Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, ratified by the Tunisian state, establishes an interrelated relationship between freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

1. Every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and this includes his freedom to condemn religion, his freedom to profess any belief he chooses, and his freedom to manifest his religion by worship, observance of rituals, practice, and education alone or in groups and in front of the public or alone.

2. No one shall be subjected to coercion that would undermine his freedom to choose a religion or his freedom to profess any religion or belief of his choice.

«Freedom of conscience lies in the middle ground between freedom of thought and freedom of religion.»

Freedom of thought gives the individual the intellectual tools that allow him to freely select and exercise and distinguish his emotional and religious choices, his convictions, and the freedom of conscience that allude to the normative life and the internal value of the individual that allows him to crystallize his convictions, including religious and faith convictions.

In this sense freedom of conscience goes beyond the narrow concept of freedom of belief. It does not mean only the right to choose between religions, but in particular the right to believe and not to believe, that is, not to choose any religion and embrace a non-religious order.

Freedom of conscience also implies the right to change one’s religion. For example, a person can move from the Islamic religion to the Christian religion or vice versa without being subject to punishment, or to risk diminishing his citizenship rights.

This is in line with the position of the Human Rights Committee in its General Comment No. 22 on the aforementioned Article 18, which affirmed that freedom of conscience essentially entails “the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including switching a person’s religion or belief to another religion or belief or adopting a position that is contrary to all Religion.”

From this perspective, freedom of conscience is considered one of the basic freedoms and the main pillars of the democratic system, and it is the criterion of differentiation between the civil state based on the sovereignty of the people and the supremacy of the law and the religious theocratic state, which is further confirmed with the prohibition of article 6 of accusations of apostasy and incitement to hatred and violence. There is no point in prescribing freedom of conscience and thinking if the door is open to accusations of apostasy, violence, hatred, physical liquidation, and the permissibility of blood for religious choices, philosophical opinions, or artistic perceptions, even if they are shocking, daring, and contrary to the prevailing and familiar.

On the other hand, freedom of conscience entails equality in law and before the law between male and female citizens, which is found in Article 21, which states: “Citizens have equal rights and duties and are equal before the law without discrimination.”

Consequently, the legislative or general regulatory authority cannot lay down a legal text that distinctions between citizens based on race, gender, or political or social affiliation, especially based on religious ideas or faith choices.

It should be noted that the first article, in its stipulation that the state religion is Islam, does not contradict the sixth article on freedom of conscience, because the recognition of Islam as the official state religion in the first article is nothing more than the recognition that Islam is the religion of the overwhelming majority of Tunisian citizens.

It cannot, therefore, justify, in one way or another, a violation of the freedom of conscience and of restricting its exercise. The different parts of the constitution interpret and explain each other as a harmonious unit, according to what is stipulated in Article 146 of the Constitution. Consequently, there is no contradiction between the recognition of the religion of the majority of the people as a sociological, historical, and a civilization given, on the one hand, and the right of every individual to determine freely and without interference by the state or any other party his religious, ideological and philosophical choices on the other hand. Additionally, article two of the Constitution clearly guarantees the civil character of the Tunisian state, the supremacy of the law, and the sovereignty of the people, which makes religion a subject to the Tunisian state and does not allow the state to be subordinate to religion.

The Attalaki NGO continues the collaboration with the Tunisian State and international organizations to emphasize the importance of religious diversity in Tunisia and the dialogue that must take place to make this diversity and pluralism a cause of wealth for Tunisian society. In this context, the president of the association was invited by the Minister of Religious Affairs Mr. Ahmed Adhoum to discuss the situation of religious minorities in Tunisia and the role of the ministry in this area.

In Tunisia, we find ourselves in a reality increasingly marked by the challenges regarding religious freedom in general, in particular, that the State continues its policy of indifference before a fundamental issue, especially for a country that claims to be in a democratic transition towards a rule of law marked by universal values, as predicted in the preamble to the Second Republic’s constitution.

Islam is considered the religion that enjoys the majority in Tunisia with 97% of the population, most of which adheres to the thought of Maliki-Ash’ari with the presence of other Islamic sects like the Shiites, Ibadism, Hanafi, Hanbali, Ahmadiyya, and Sufis, without forgetting radical Islamic movements such as jihadism with its different streams of theological thought. As for the other religions, there are 1,500 Jews from Tunisia, most of whom live on the island of Djerba, Tunis, and the coastal regions (including Sousse). About 5,000 Tunisian Christians are spread throughout Tunisia, the majority of whom are under the obligation to practice their ceremonies (prayer gatherings) in homes (home churches) and this is due to the absence of churches especially in the internal regions of the country (this problem affects the Tunisian Protestant community which represents the overwhelming majority of Tunisian Christians). There are also 30,000 foreign Christians residing in Tunisia (the majority of who belong to the Roman Catholic Church). In addition to a hundred adherents of the Bahai faith. This community is in search of recognition and their right to organize legally for years (in the associative framework to enhance their culture). Without forgetting also the presence of a large number of atheists and non-believers, their number is estimated at thousands, and the majority of them are young.

“Although it has been 10 years since the popular revolution of January 14, 2011, the issue of diversity and pluralism in the Tunisian society has not been resolved, in addition to the rise of hate speech and the number of recorded cases of violence and violation of the rights of Tunisian citizens on the base of their beliefs.”

It should be noted that these statistics concerning religious minorities are not based on any official study carried out by the Tunisian State, only on the annual reports of international bodies. This “religious making in Tunisia” in terms of numbers is progressively changing.
However, despite their claims of freedom and equality, they only allow Muslim citizens to run for the presidency and other government and military positions. It clearly states in Article 74 that a person’s religion must be Islam to be president: “Every male and female voter who holds Tunisian nationality since birth, whose religion is Islam shall have the right to stand for election to the position of President of the Republic”. Religious minorities in Tunisia are also being subjected to different forms of oppression, that is why a lot of Christians in Tunisia often hide their religious identity to avoid being discriminated against. A report also claims that some citizens are being excluded from basic citizenship right because of their religion even though the country’s constitution states that every citizen is subjected to all the constitutional rights, regardless of their religious identity. In addition to the report, the state often disregards the safety and freedom of religious minorities like Christians, Jews, Baha’is, and others, as these groups are often subjected to discrimination.

As an example of these oppressions, a Christian family in Southern Tunisia was harassed last March, and a family member was dragged by her hair as she was being tortured repeatedly by her neighbors. They were also called hateful names by the neighbors. The family went on to file a report against their neighbors who attacked them, but the police officials did not entertain them until they submitted a medical charge. After being harassed, the police officials only questioned them regarding their religious identity and didn’t care much about the attack. Thankfully, the Attalaki is currently helping the family with their case and appointed a lawyer for them. There have been numerous reports of attacks and oppression on Christians in Tunisia like the Christian girl who was arrested for wearing a cross necklace, a Christian pastor who was threatened on Facebook, and a woman who was beaten by her brother for not having the same religion (Islam) as his.

Attalaki works closely with these national and international partners to strengthen the notion of citizenship in the Tunisian reality through the acceptance of diversity and pluralism and through the follow-up that takes place with the members of the different religious communities in Tunisia, the sensitization of society to the issue of diversity and the rejection of hate speech, training sessions, and conferences that are held to address different topics with different types of participants, such as religious leaders, politicians, representatives of national organizations, etc. Attalaki also works with the United Nations agencies in Tunisia and Geneva to raise the agencies of the international community to the deteriorating situation of religious minorities in Tunisia, In this context, the NGO intervened in the 13th session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues, the whose targeted issue was the “Hate Speech, Social Media and Minorities”, Attalaki’s intervention focused on religious extremism and hate speech in the Tunisian parliament, which has repeatedly targeted religious minorities in Tunisia, until the justification of terrorist acts in France recently for one of the deputies.

This discourse has become at the forefront of the Tunisian scene in all its aspects, whereby incitement to violence and crime against marginalized groups, including religious minorities, has become an almost daily act. Although some methods may not incite violence directly, they nonetheless reinforce the phenomena of intolerance and extremism that lead to the legitimization of religious acts of hate. It becomes more dangerous when the legal legislator or constitutional founder in the country is the main source of this discourse, its defense, and justification for its crimes, whether it is inside or outside, bypassing its primary role in protecting the security and social peace and respecting state institutions and laws.

1 Hate Speech in Social Media

Today, social media is considered the most effective way to help the promoters of hate speech to spread their messages and ideas, which are usually sharp and tend to advocate the use of violence as a means to deter violators or who consider them a reason for spreading deviant ideas that are alien to the culture of the Tunisian society, which in their view is characterized as a Muslim and conservative society. 

It is very noticeable that some clerics affiliated with the radical Islamic trend in Tunisia represent a fundamental element in promoting hate speech, especially as they play on the emotional chord of people to charge them against each other and use religion as a means to justify hostilities and incitement to violence and hatred, which is usually based on elements that contribute to deepening this discourse, such as if the speaker is influential and has many followers or sympathizers, which helps him to reach the largest possible segment of people by publishing Facebook posts, data or videos that are widely circulated. This facilitates the process of integrating minds, which is spread more among the religious, cultural, and intellectual fragile groups, and these factors allow this inflammatory discourse to penetrate among people, to generate supporters, supporters, and defenders of it and its companions.

2   Hate speech from within the highest legislative authority

The Assembly of the Representatives of the People, in its new parliamentary session for the year 2019, has become a source for spreading hate speech and incitement to violence, especially with the rise of extremist currents from different intellectual and political streams that adopt populist and emotional discourse. The Assembly of Representatives witnessed several violent statements by some of its members that contradict the principles of the constitution and explicitly violate the laws. Among the most prominent events that were considered dangerous is the incident of the killing of the French professor who displayed caricatures of the Messenger of Islam Muhammad (PBUH). Many national parties and organizations condemned this terrorist operation, but MP Rashed El-Khayari wrote on his Facebook account the following: “Insulting the Prophet is the greatest crime, and whoever commits it must bear its consequences, be it a state, group or individual.” In the face of the uproar caused by his post, which was accompanied by an investigation that was opened by the Public Prosecution on the meaning of Article 31 of the Terrorism Law, which criminalizes any form of support or glorification of terrorism and terrorists, and during the great indignation of his post, the same MP published another post that was considered a flagrant challenge to the law and the constitution, and it included the following: “I may waive my immunity and leave parliament, but I will not waive my conviction for the crime of insulting the Prophet, Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and Mohamed is the Messenger of God, more important and greater than glory, parliament, politics and the whole world.” Many human rights defenders and politicians have called for his immunity to be withdrawn and for him to be tried on charges of glorifying terrorism and encouraging violence based on religion.

In his intervention on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, the plenary session in Parliament, MP Mohamed al-Afas expressed his indifference to the constitution that criminalizes accusations of apostasy, as he spoke about it with great ease, saying “We should not be ashamed of the accusing others of apostasy, as it is a Sharia’ ruling, so why to condemn it?” The second deputy speaker interrupted him, reminding him that his speech was outside the framework of the session, while many MPs, including Abier Moussi, head of the Free Constitutional Party bloc, considered that this intervention was really outside the framework, to the point of verbal altercation and clash between the constitutional representatives and the Islamists.