Tunisia abuses panel receives 2,000 cases

The panel tasked with probing abuses committed since the December 17 start of Tunisia's popular uprising has so far received almost 2,000 cases, its chairman said Friday. "The commission has received a total of 1,965 cases, including 238 for homicide," Taoufik Bouderbala, head of the fact-finding commission on abuses, told reporters. The panel simply receives files from ordinary citizens on abuses that resulted in death, injury or material loss during the revolt that led to the ouster of longtime dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. The cases counted by the fact-finding commission are then forwarded to the state's judiciary system. Bouderbala said the complaints he had received included cases involving snipers shooting civilians in the aftermath of Ben Ali's January 14 exit. He accused the interior ministry of being uncooperative. "On May 26, we asked the ministry to send us the full organisational chart of the security forces in order to check whether a sniper unit does exist. We never got an answer," he complained. According to the United Nations, 300 Tunisians were killed and 700 wounded during the December-January unrest.