Tunisians Brace for Truths About a Legacy of Torture

were made to watch.

Before the revolutions that swept the region more than four years ago, that kind of torture was not uncommon in the Arab world. What is exceptional about Tunisia, now a democracy, is that it is daring to examine its past publicly. There is even talk of televising the public hearings to begin in June.

When Tunisia’s democratically elected president, Beji Caid Essebsi, visited the United States in May, President Barack Obama told him he plans to reward the country by giving it the status of major non- NATO ally, which brings a higher level of cooperation granted to friendly countries.

Though the truth commission process can be painful, leaving it undone could allow old grievances to fester and eventually erupt again. But doubts are mounting. The country’s two main political the independence movement; the torture and imprisonment of about 30,000 trade unionists, students, leftists and Islamists; and the casualties of the 2011 revolution that began the Arab Spring: 338 dead and 2,147 wounded.

While the nation’s leaders were promoting Tunisia as a modern country of universal education and emancipated women, they were also running a system of torture and repression. The worst torture chambers were in the basement of the Interior Ministry, a gray concrete building at one end of a cafe-lined central boulevard. Nearby residents would hear the screams of prisoners at 3 a.m., according to Mounira Ben Kaddour, secretary general of the Tunisian Women’s Association.

Mr. Hamemi and two cellmates submitted their claims to the truth commission together.

“They beat us with sticks and electric cables,” Mr. Hamemi said. “They would even put sticks in our private parts. They tied our private organs and pulled them. I was also hung upside down on a door, hands tied, for five to six hours.”

Mohamed Salah Barhoumi, a taxi driver who went to prison twice, said he had received much the same treatment. “I was harassed for 13 years by the administration, and my family was, too,” he said. “Three days in a row, they did the ‘roast chicken’ on me. From night to day, slaps, blows, all kinds of kicking.”

The torturers wanted information, and everyone gave up names and even confessed to crimes that they had not committed, Mr. Hamemi said.

Rached Jaidane, a math professor, was imprisoned for 13 years for plotting against the president, a charge he says was invented. He has since tried to sue officials. “It is important to have public hearings on television,” he said, so that generations to come will know what happened.

Many victims who hoped for swift justice after the revolution are disillusioned by how slow the process has been. Advocates complain of a lack of political will, as well as inefficiencies in the truth commission.

But Mr. Hamemi said he wanted to hear his torturers apologize.

“I could have done it with my own hands after the revolution,” he said, “but I want to do it by the law.”