First Arab LGBTQ organization wins legal recognition in Tunisia
The LGBTQ group's president favors diplomatic relations with Israel
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALTunisian LGBT+ activist and presidential candidate Mounir Baatour works in his office in Tunis, Tunisia, July 9, 2019(photo credit: ZOUBEIR SOUISSI / REUTERS)
BERLIN – The Tunisian LGBTQ organization SHAMS announced on March 11 that a court recognized its legal status in response to efforts by the Muslim-majority state to close the group.Mounir Baatour, who is president of SHAMS and favors diplomatic relations with Israel, termed the victory a “success of which I am very proud. SHAMS… became legal after years of legal battle. We won… against the many post-revolutionary political-judicial regimes! This is not the least of my satisfactions. To my knowledge, SHAMS is now the only legal association in the Arab-Muslim world. This is not nothing and offers us hardly believable opportunities, sometimes beyond our borders.”Since the founding of Shams in 2015, Tunisian authorities sought to use Islamic Sharia law to shut down LGBTQ rights and LGBTQ groups in the country.The legal dispute over recognition of SHAMS meandered its way through Tunisia’s legal system over the years.Last month, Tunisia's Court of Cassation – the final legal venue for appeals in the North African country – issued its ruling declaring SHAMS a legal organization, rejecting the state's attempts to close it down. SHAMS' name originates with the Sufi mystic Shams Tabrizi. Its logo consists of two whirling dervishes.Shams seeks to decriminalize homosexuality and advance the rights of sexual minority groups.The Jerusalem Postreported in 2019 that Baatour previously wrote on Facebook: “We are proud of the absolute equality of all Tunisians no matter what their religion, color, gender, language [or] sexual identity. Tunisia needs a democratic agenda that can include the different identities, cultures, beliefs and languages of this country. Our program aims to democratize power, by strengthening the weight of Parliament and giving more weight to local institutions.“Economically, our program targets growth of production and the real sector, job creation and the cleansing of an economy that is artificially inflated and extremely dependent on foreign investment. In foreign policy – as on the domestic scene – our motto is peace.”In a debate on Tunisian TV last year, Baatour said, “I told you that normalization [with Israel] is not treason. Normalization is in Tunisia’s best interests in terms of economy and international relations.”
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