Brookings reports on Tunisia's failure to implement reforms

The Brookings Institution has published this smart report by Hamza Mighri and Sharon Grewal on Tunisia's failure to end its use of military courts to try civilians. Excerpt:

In the last five years, Tunisia’s three military courts — in Tunis, Sfax, and Kef — have tried a number of civilians. In the most high profile case, Yassine Ayari, a blogger and current member of parliament, was sentenced in absentia in 2014 to three years in prison for publishing comments on Facebook that “defamed” the military command and “undermined the army’s morale.” At least ten other bloggers and social media activists have been investigated on similar defamation charges by both civilian and military courts.

Beyond defamation, military courts have also been used to target political opponents. In May 2017, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed asked a military court to try prominent Tunisian businessman Chafik Jarraya and seven other personalities, ostensibly for corruption and treason, but likely because they had been funding rivals within the party Chahed belonged to at the time, Nidaa Tounes. In November 2018, Slim Riahi, then-secretary-general of Nidaa Tounes, filed a case in a military court against Chahed accusing him of plotting a coup (the case was soon dismissed). Finally, the late President Beji Caid Essebsi in December 2018 asked the judiciary to investigate his primary political rival, the Ennahda party, on accusations of harboring a secret military apparatus.

Human rights norms strongly disfavor the trial of civilians by military courts.