In Tunisia, the president relaunches the debate on the death penalty
During the campaign for his election in 2019, Kaïs Saïed had defended openly conservative positions.
FETHI BELAID / AFP
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4 min
While the country has observed a moratorium since 1991, Kaïs Saïed voted for the death penalty after the murder of a young woman last week near Tunis.
"Anyone who kills a person for no reason deserves the death penalty," the head of state said Monday evening.
Several NGOs point out that the death penalty has no preventive effect.
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It is a murder that has revived the debate on
the death penalty
, after almost three decades of moratorium in
Tunisia
.
Rahma, 29, who disappeared after leaving her job, was found last week near the highway between the capital Tunis and the residential district of Marsa.
Very quickly, a suspect was arrested and claimed to have killed her and to have stolen her phone, said the Minister of the Interior.
"
It seems that the killer (alleged, editor's note) had already killed someone before and had been pardoned
", commented President Kaïs Saïed during a security council Monday evening.
"
We will provide him with all the conditions for self-defense, but if it is proven that he has killed one or more people, I do not think that the solution is (...) not to apply the death penalty
", he added.
The murder had triggered a wave of emotion, especially on social networks.
But NGOs such as the League for Human Rights have recalled that the death penalty is a violation of rights which has no preventive effect.
Chokri Latif, president of the Tunisian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which brings together a collective of associations, believes for his part that the President of the Republic has exceeded his prerogatives.
“
For me, the intervention of the President of the Republic should not be done in this way.
As the guarantor of the Constitution, he should first and foremost respect the Tunisian political system, which is based on the separation of powers.
The executive power should not interfere in the sphere of the power of justice, he
believes.
And he should not set himself up as a judge to say that such and such a person whose case is under investigation is a criminal, and to pronounce a verdict against him, the death penalty.
Another thing: we are a Republic whose reference point is the Constitution.
And he was referring to Sharia law.
He said: "this is the clear and clean text I am referring to for the reinstatement of the death penalty, it is the Koran."
And he gave the verse.
We do not give up despite threats.
I am threatened with rape, myself and my family members.
Clearly they write it down, they are not afraid on social media.
These threats will not make us give up.
"
Despite the moratorium, Tunisia continues to hand down death sentences on a regular basis.
Since 2015, nearly 300 death sentences, some of which are not final, have been handed down in Tunisia.
And in Tunisian prisons, nearly a hundred people have been sentenced to death.
Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
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Tunisia
Human rights
Kaïs Saïed