Amnesty International condemned this statement. Post-Arab Spring period Īfter the Tunisian Revolution and the 2011 Tunisian Constituent Assembly election, the then-Minister for Human Rights and Transitional Justice, Samir Dilou, remarked on national television that homosexuality was not a human rights issue, but a condition in need of medical treatment. ĭuring the rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from 1987 to 2011, the regime filtered gay and lesbian information and dating pages. In 2008, the Government of Tunisia was one of the co-sponsors of an opposing statement to the 2008 United Nations General Assembly resolution and declaration calling for the decriminalization of same-sex sexual intercourse worldwide. They served as intermediaries between masculine and feminine spaces during wedding celebrations, were invited in men's houses in the presence of their wives, and could enter in private spaces reserved for women in a similar status to the blind. 3 Recognition of same-sex relationshipsįrom the end of the 18th century to the start of the 19th century, gay men held social roles in Tunisia similar to those in other parts of the Muslim world despite ongoing stigmatisation.
