Alleged rape victim cleared of indecency charge
Date December 1, 2012
President Moncef Marzouki offered a state apology to the woman. Photo: AP
TUNIS: Tunisian authorities have dropped a case of possible indecency against a young woman allegedly raped by two policemen, her lawyer says. The accused officers may now face charges.
''The charges [against the woman] were dropped for lack of evidence and the judge has decided to [charge] two policemen for rape and a third for corruption,'' Bouchra Belhaj Hmida said. The case was dismissed ''against the woman and her boyfriend'', another lawyer, Emna Zahrouni, said.
The 27-year-old alleged rape victim faced possible indecency charges with her fiance, based on the testimony of the alleged rapists, policemen who say they caught the couple by surprise in an ''immoral position''.
The woman, whose identity has not been revealed, was delighted after the case was dismissed. ''I'm very happy even though I had expected to be found innocent. I'm glad that the other two will now face charges,'' she said. ''This is the beginning of our victory.''
A judicial source had said the police found the couple having sex in a car on September 3. Two of them then took the woman to the police car, where they raped her, while a third restrained and tried to extort money from her fiance, the source said.
The case sparked a storm of protest in Tunisia, with NGOs, media and opposition figures saying the proceedings had transformed the victim into the accused and reflected the Islamist-led government's policy towards women.
The Prime Minister, Hamadi Jebali, from the ruling Islamist party Ennahda, said in October the policemen, who were arrested shortly after the incident, would be ''severely judged''. But he also said there might be a case of indecency to answer. But the President, Moncef Marzouki, offered a state apology to the woman.
Since the Islamists' rise to power after last year's revolution, feminist groups have accused police of regularly harassing women, by challenging them over their clothing or if they go out at night unaccompanied by family members.
Gender equality, enshrined in the Personal Status Code under Tunisia's first president, Habib Bourguiba, made the north African nation a beacon of modernity in the Arab world.
Ennahda, the Islamist party that heads the ruling coalition, was criticised for proposing an article, since dropped, in the new constitution referring to the ''complementarity'' of men to women, rather than equality.
Agence France-Presse
