According to The Trust Project, Tunisia is forcibly carrying out anal exams on men who authorities suspect are gay.
In the country, homosexuality is strictly prohibited, in accordance with article 230 of the current Penal Code. “Sodomy will be punished by up to three years in prison,” says the text. Its consequences: 79 people arrested in 2017 and 60 currently serving sentences for this crime, according to data from Shams, the country's LGBTQ association.
Mounir Baatour who is the president of Shams, first Tunisian LGTBI collective, which he founded after being in prison. “The situation of the LGBTQ community here is catastrophic. Look: these are two anal tests. One of them was carried out last year on a 23-year-old young man.” “They are done by doctors who are actually torturers.” The exams are carried out as a form of rape, where the doctor inserts his finger inside your anus to try to find out whether or not you have had sex with men.
These tests are denounced by several NGOs. “When they arrest a person for their homosexual appearance and do an anal test, they subject them to a type of torture and not to an examination with any scientific validity”, reports Yamina Thabet, a doctor and activist.
