Tunisia-Human Rights Watch express concern after Two men get 2 years in jail for homosexuality

Human Rights Watch said that a Tunisian court sentenced two men accused of sodomy to two years in prison.

The organization considered that The decision violates their rights to privacy and non-discrimination under international law and Tunisia’s 2014 constitution.

It added that the Police arrested the two men, both 26, on suspicion of same-sex conduct on June 3 in Le Kef, a city 175 kilometres southwest of Tunis, after one of them filed an unrelated complaint against the other.

“Tunisia’s record of actively prosecuting people for consensual same-sex conduct is deeply worrying and a blatant invasion of their private life,” said Rasha Younes, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.“While states and international bodies have commended Tunisia for its progress on human rights, the criminalization and prosecution of homosexual conduct signals otherwise”,she added.

The organisation said that authorities transferred the men, whose names are being withheld for their privacy, to a prison in Ben Arous, near Tunis, when a prisoner in el-Kef prison contracted Covid-19. The men are now being quarantined in the Ben Arous prison.