The Tunisian War on Terrorism: A Compromise Between Liberty and Security
A suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying members of the presidential guard in Tunis on Nov. 24, killing at least 12 officers and injuring dozens more civilians. The group known as the Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attack, the third one of its kind this year in Tunisia. President Béji Caïd Essebsi immediately announced the re-establishment of the state of emergency for 30 days and the establishment of a curfew in Tunis. “I saw at least five corpses on the ground … this was not an ordinary explosion,” Bassem Trifi, a human rights lawyer who was present, told the Washington Post.
The attack led Tunisia to close its border with Libya and to escalate its security controls and operations. The Ministry of Interior has ordered over 1,000 raids and placed almost 150 people under house arrest since the bombing.
While the first two terrorist strikes in 2015 targeted the Tunisian tourism industry and foreigners, the most recent attack hit the very heart of the capital within walking distance of ministerial headquarters. “Now the jihadists’ war on the Tunisian government has come into the cities,” noted Farah Samti in for Foreign Policy.
Though seemingly warranted, affording more power to Tunisian special forces could prove harmful to Tunisia’s democratic achievements. According to Vanessa Szakal from Nawaat, “the actions of security forces … have kept alive the notion that effective security requires the relinquishing of certain rights and liberties.” Representative Mustapha Ben Ahmed instead argued that “we have a surplus of useless liberties.”
Responding to the arrest and injury of several journalists by security agents at the scene of the blast, Borhen Bsaies, a TV anchor for Nessma TV, went as far as to say that “sometimes … it occurs that security forces arrest and beat up a poor innocent citizen. We respect police agents and we give them the benefit of the doubt in this context.” Similarly, a recent poll showed that 78 percent of Tunisians are ready to relinquish some of their liberties in exchange for greater security.
The government should be wary, “not [to] succumb to the temptation of reestablishing the barrier of fear between the ordinary citizen and the political institutions,” argued Michael Ayari in Le Monde. The Secretary General of the ruling Nidaa Tounes party, Mohsen Marzouk, summarized, "Some people … are asking for less liberties and more security because of terrorism. But we think that democracy and freedom is an army, is a weapon against terrorism."