Tunisian dissident lawyer and writer Mohamed Abbou was arrested in March 2005 and jailed for three and a half years for his internet expose of torture in Tunisian prisons. This is his first major published commentary on the state of Tunisian human rights since his release on a presidential pardon in July 2007, written to mark the 20th anniversary of the coup that brought the current government to power

How afflicting it is to live in a state that guarantees neither the rights of the person, nor their dignity or freedom, which mobilises its institutions to repress its citizens, without fear of being called to account.

How painful it is for a thinking person to see his fellow citizens so intimidated, forced to struggle to provide for their families, denied the right to personal safety and the opportunity to improve their lives. And how sad it is to note how Tunisia’s political opposition has so far failed to reverse this situation.

A state that does not respect the rule of law, a people paralysed by fear, and a weak opposition, this is the result of the 20 years that the second president of the Tunisian Republic has been in power.

The role of the state is to secure the rule of law over society, and that the rights and duties it confers are equally and fairly applicable to all, and that no one individual or group should have advantage over another.

In Tunisia, such principles should be benchmarks for our daily lives. Instead we are facing a security apparatus that at times behaves like a criminal gang: threatening, assaulting and even torturing, operating without respect for the very laws it is supposed to enforce.

The state consciously places the powerful above the law, ensuring that they remain unaccountable to anyone. Those who do try to criticise them, or expose their corruption, are jailed. They are deaf to the calls for help from inside their prisons and to the public objections of Tunisia’s western partners (public objections that are sometimes in contradiction with their private positions).

Its institutions are used to persecute critics of the regime. Their jobs and salaries are hit, their households starved and their families humiliated. They are attacked on the street. Their children are harassed. All to ensure the regime’s grip on absolute power is maintained between elections conducted in a climate of intimidation and corrupt practice.

When I dared denounce the reality that prevails in Tunisia, I broke a taboo by denouncing the scandals and by exposing corruption. That’s when the regime decided to target my family’s interests and persecute us. The regime threw me in jail, seeking to humiliate me.

Despite the various pressures from the outside world, the Tunisian regime prolonged my detention as much as it could. Not because I led an association that was a real threat to the regime. Not because I was trying to steal the potentate’s throne, soaked as it is in blood and tears. No. It was because I was seen as an example of dissidence, and one that might somehow contaminate Tunisian society.

This has been the way of the Tunisian regime for 20 years, a way inherited from the regime it replaced back then. The current president has simply developed the strategy—fear as a tool of government—into a tradition, a national institution with sophisticated techniques.

It spreads the message through its acts, so the citizen may understand clearly that it is uncompromising, it will not stay its hand over those who criticise it and it will not spare the critic’s family and children from collective punishment. And up to now, the strategy has worked wonderfully. The majority of Tunisian citizens are now fearful of the very idea of discussing politics.

Tunisia has many advantages that should predispose it to a secure democracy. It is ethnically, and in terms of religion, a homogeneous country and the country has worked well since independence to ensure that the populace is well educated. Its geographic and natural qualities have lent Tunisians a mild and tolerant temperament, and a successful tourism industry over 50 years has left them comfortable with the ways of the outside world.

Yet the Tunisian opposition has yet to find a path to becoming an effective political force, swinging as it does between fear of repression and its own ideological divisions (sometimes encouraged by the regime). It has so far failed to attract significant support from the people, so that they may be liberated from fear.

It is a distressing truth and an unfulfilled dream. But is not a dream that we will renounce as long as there is evidence that opposition groups can still cooperate and the people will still voice their rejection of the regime. Despite the repression and the voices of despondency and doubt, our determination will lead us on. And if we fail in our mission we have full confidence in our children.