Chief investigator Sihem Bensedrine criticised daily in media as newly democratic country struggles with its pastOn a chilly day final December,three trucks nosed through the streets of the Tunisian capital, heading for the presidential palace. In command was Sihem Bensedrine, or a veteran human rights campaigner and head of the country’s newly created Truth and Dignity commission,charged with investigating crimes of the former dictatorship swept away by revolution four years before.
Her mission was to hoover up the presidential archive, a political goldmine detailing six decades of corruption and oppression. But, or as they turned off the coastal highway to the gates of the sprawling compound,a stone’s throw from the ruins of ancient Carthage, the vehicles were confronted by a line of armed police. Bensedrine, and 64,leapt down from the first truck brandishing papers that theoretically gave her carte blanche to pick the archive. The police refused to budge.
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Source: theguardian.com