Seven years after Tunisia’s revolution, relatives of hundreds of people who died and thousands who were injured in the fight for democracy say they are still waiting for justice and recognition.

No one is currently in jail for attacks carried out during days of protests in early 2011, lawyers for the families say, even though many suspects have been identified and some have been arrested and prosecuted.



Nor has the government published an official list of the more than 300 Tunisians who died, or the injured. There are no national monuments to the sacrifice of these mostly young men and women, and bereaved families and injured survivors say they have had little of the practical or financial help they were promised.

“There is no justice in Tunisia,” said Om Saad, a retired policewoman whose 23-year-old son Majdi was shot dead a block away from the family home by a policeman he had known since childhood. “I know who killed my child and I will not forgive.”

Om Saad with her son’s Majdi’s memorial. Photograph: Emma Graham-Harrison/The Guardian

Saad, who lives in Ettadhamen, a deprived Tunis suburb that considers itself the cradle of the revolution, said she had been to more than 49 hearings and tribunals in her son’s case as it was tossed from civilian courts to military tribunals. After the killer was convicted, an initial sentence of 20 years was struck down and he eventually walked free after barely five years in jail.

Saad’s experience was all too common, said Charfeddine Kellil, a lawyer who took on human rights cases against Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the autocrat ousted in the 2011 revolution, and who now finds himself fighting the government that replaced Ben Ali. “This government and the party of the president is against the revolution and does not believe in it,” Kellil said.

He said the last person held in jail over deaths in the revolution was released on the eve of the revolution’s seventh anniversary, adding insult to injury for the bereaved family.

Timeline Key events in Tunisia since the 2011 revolt Show President flees Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali quits on 14 January, after weeks of demonstrations. The Islamist group Ennahda is legalised in March, and in October it wins 89 of the 217 seats in a constituent assembly in Tunisia's first free election. The assembly elects the former opposition leader Moncef Marzouki as president in December. Attacks, unrest In June and August, violent demonstrations erupt, while Islamists start staging attacks. In September, four attackers are killed in clashes at the US embassy as hundreds protest over an anti-Islam film. In late November, riots break out in Siliana, south-west of Tunis, in which 300 are injured. Opposition leaders killed In February, the prominent anti-Islamist opposition leader Chokri Belaid is assassinated in Tunis, sparking deadly protests and a political crisis. In July, the leftist opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi is also shot dead. Jihadists claim both killings. First free presidential poll In January, politicians adopt a new constitution after two years of turmoil that exposed a deep rift between Ennahda and the secular opposition. In October, the secular Nidaa Tounes party led by Beji Caid Essebsi comes top in the parliamentary polls. Two months later, Essebsi defeats Marzouki in Tunisia's first free presidential election. Carnage The country suffers three attacks claimed by Islamic State: in March, 21 tourists and a policeman are killed as gunmen assail the Bardo Museum in Tunis; in June, attackers kill 38 foreign tourists, 30 from Britain, in a coastal resort town south of Tunis; in November, a suicide bomber kills 12 presidential guards in the capital. New protests In January, protests against poverty and unemployment erupt throughout the country. It is the worst social unrest since the 2011 revolution. In March, at least 35 jihadists, 11 members of the security forces and seven civilians are killed during an assault on security installations in the town of Ben Guerdane. In August, Youssef Chahed of Nidaa Tounes forms a national unity government including ministers from Ennahda and independents. 'Decisive measures' In December the IMF calls on Tunis to take "urgent action" and "decisive measures" to reduce its deficit, after giving the country a $2.9bn loan the previous year. AFP

One of that man’s alleged victims was Abdul Qader, younger brother of Ali Mekki, a civil servant who leads an informal organisation of bereaved families and injured survivors. Mekki spent the anniversary leading a protest through the streets of Tunis, reminding the government and his fellow citizens that families whose sacrifice would be honoured and celebrated in other countries felt like outcasts in their own home.



“It should be a symbolic anniversary, the president should be at the palace celebrating and receiving politicians and families of martyrs,” he said, standing beside a campaign banner scrawled with “We will not forgive” in red. “That’s why we have to be in the streets to protect the revolution.”

Among the protesters’ key demands was publication of an official list of the dead. A preliminary record was drawn up in 2011 but never published. Instead it became a political football for Tunisia’s squabbling new leaders, who demanded a new round of investigations, arguing they needed to screen out treasure-hunting fraudsters.

Yamina Zoghlami, an MP, was one of the people tasked with drawing up the final list, as a member of the parliamentary commission for martyrs and those injured in the revolution. The commission completed the first part of its work, filtering through files of alleged martyrs in mid-2016, she said, but the government blocked the list’s publication.

Officially, the government wanted to wait for the much longer list of the injured so it could publish them together, but Zoghlami admitted the delay was also driven by political concerns. The government had eliminated some of the claims, and officials feared the shorter list would spark protests.

Demonstrators outside the interior ministry in Tunis on 14 January 2011. Photograph: Lucas Dolega/EPA

“They are frightened that when they publish it there will be violence in some places, because numbers [of people on the lists] will decrease,” she said. “So of course there will be some pressure on the government.”

The government, which has set and broken many deadlines for the publication of the list, including most recently 14 January, now says the list will come out in March.

Zoghlami said that would pave the way for official recognition of the dead. “When we get a final list we can make monuments, put things in the museums, name streets after them, put them in the textbooks, lots of things. It’s in the law, I fought for this.”

Justice may take longer than monuments, however. Zoghlami said Tunisia’s leaders must maintain a delicate balance between the need to uncover the truth and fears the country could slide back into violence.

The birthplace of the Arab spring is also the only country swept up in the 2011 revolutions that has clung on to democracy. It has watched nervously as others have slid back into civil war or witnessed the rise of new autocrats.



“There is a fear that Tunisia could have the same destiny as the other [Arab spring] countries, Syria and Libya,” Zoghlami said. “That’s why we are hurrying to forget the past and going to a better future.”

The bereaved families and their supporters say Tunisia will never reach that better future if it cannot provide justice for those who fought for it.

“How could I accept Tunisia as my country? I cry for the whole generation,” Om Saad said. “We have given them the country on a plate; they know why the revolution began.”