At the end of his fact-finding visit to Tunisia this week, Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, was full of praise for the Tunisian approach to dealing with terrorism. At least, he was if you believe the Tunisian media.

It is true that he thanked Tunisian officials for meeting him and mentioned one or two positive aspects, such as "the multi-dimensional approach to preventing terrorism through social, educational and anti-discrimination measures", but ...

In his statement to the press conference there were rather a lot of buts that the Tunisian media preferred to ignore:

• "The 2003 counter-terrorism law still contains deficiencies which, as in many other countries, are rooted in the definition of terrorism ... As I have systematically emphasised, deadly or otherwise serious physical violence against members of the general population or segments of it should be a central element of any definition of terrorism. This is clearly not the case in Tunisia ..."

• "I have yet to receive precise statistics from the authorities on the number of terrorism cases tried by Tunisian courts in recent years. However, as terrorism is not an everyday phenomenon in Tunisia, it appears that the scope of application of the terrorism provisions has grown too wide ... I see here a danger of a 'slippery slope' which not only results in the persons being convicted of 'terrorism' who do not deserve that stigma, but also endangers the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism by trivialising the phenomenon."

• "There does not seem to exist a clear provision requiring judges to open investigations ex officio in cases of torture allegations presented in court ... or to exclude any evidence or statements obtained under torture."

• "The most disturbing experience during my mission was the existence of serious discrepancies between the law and what was reported to me as happening in reality ... 

- It appears, and the authorities have admitted as much, that the date of arrest may be postdated, circumventing the rules about the allowed length of police detention ... 

- The frequent use of confessions as evidence in court without proper investigation into allegations of torture or other ill-treatment;

- The inadequacy of guarantees against torture ...

- The disproportionately low number of prosecutions or other clear findings related to torture, compared to the frequency of allegations."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 30 January 2010.