While there are civil society organisations in Tunisia that advocate for LGBTQI+ rights (such as Damj Association, Shams Association and Mawjoudin) and increasing discourse surrounding LGBTQI+ rights in the public sphere, public opinion in Tunisia remains hostile towards LGBTQI+ identities. In 2019, BBC Arabic, in collaboration with the Arab Barometer, conducted a public opinion survey which found that only seven percent of Tunisians considered homosexuality acceptable. 

Online harassment of LGBTQI+ Tunisians is widespread, including by actors allegedly linked to the government. Social media is a key forum used by LGBTQI+ organisations in Tunisia to conduct advocacy but has also been used by government authorities to harass and suppress the LGBTQI+ community; according to Mawjoudin, over 90 percent of cases prosecuted under Article 230 of the Penal Code use some form of digital evidence. In addition, LGBTQI+ Tunisians on social media are often blackmailed, doxxed and threatened with being outed. Shams Association has itself been criticised by other segments of Tunisia’s LGBTQI+ community, including Mawjoudin and Chouf, for outing its members without their consent (Middle East Institute, 2020 and change.org).

In 2020, a Tunisian beauty influencer known as Lady Samara, who as of August 2025 has over 1 million followers on Instagram, posted a 23-minute video on Instagram (a clip of which was shared by Damj Association) in which she criticised members of the LGBTQI+ community as being devoid of morals and seeking to brainwash children. According to Tunisian queer activist Ramy Ayari, this video caused a spike in homophobia and outing of gay people on Tunisian social media. Lady Samara has not faced any charges in Tunisia for hate speech as Tunisia lacks a legal framework that activists can use to combat anti-LGBTQI+ speech.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, Nizar Affes, a Tunisian living in the UK known by the social media moniker “Lapa“, began posting videos and images on his social media accounts mocking people in Tunisia, including some underage people, who he perceived as being gay or effeminate. He encouraged his followers to mock them and to physically assault them if they encountered them in real life. Lapa also reportedly coined new, derogatory terms for LGBTQI+ people in Tunisian Arabic, which gained traction on social media and were amplified by others. Lapa was subsequently arrested by Leicestershire Police on suspicion of hate speech.

In 2021, LGBTQI+ rights activist and Damj Association member Rania Amdouni was reportedly subjected to an online campaign of abuse and doxxing initiated by Seifeddine Makhlouf, the leader of the Al Karama political party, and a Facebook page that was supportive of the Tunisian police with approximately 500 thousand followers. An online solidarity campaign was initiated by civil rights groups, filmmakers and actors in response.

In 2024, a social media campaign spreading homophobic and transphobic hate speech and targeting LGBTQI+ activists was reportedly amplified by President Kais Saied’s supporters . 

There are also reports of police violence against LGBTQI+ people in Tunisia. Amnesty International reported that, on 21 October 2021, Badr Baabou, the co-founder of Damj Association, was assaulted, beaten, struck on the head, kicked and thrown to the ground by two men in Tunis, one of whom was dressed in a police uniform and taunted Baabou about filing complaints against police officers. The men reportedly told Baabou that they were beating him in retaliation for filing complaints against the police and warned him not to defend “whores and [a derogatory term in Tunisian Arabic for homosexuals]”. Baabou’s lawyer stated that the police were conducting an internal investigation into the incident, but Tunisia’s interior ministry and its main police union did not respond to the Associated Press’s requests for comment. The Associated Press reported that a Human Rights Watch researcher stated that police attacks on LGBTQI+ Tunisians were becoming more “public” and “unabashed”. 

This was not the first time Baabou was assaulted. His home was reportedly broken into in 2018, he was approached on the street and given death threats by unidentified individuals in 2019 and in 2021, four individuals in civilian clothes allegedly assaulted him and then joined a nearby group of police officers who had watched the assault without intervening, prompting Baabou to file a complaint with the local prosecutor’s office.

The Tunisian government has demonstrated an unwillingness to protect LGBTQI+ Tunisians. Not only does Tunisia lack a legal framework to protect LGBTQI+ individuals, Mr Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, noted that the Tunisian government does not collect data on the realities experienced by LGBTQI+ people and that Tunisia’s National Institute of Statistics is resistant to producing data of this nature. Moreover, he noted that the Tunisian government demonstrates a lack of awareness regarding certain topics relevant to the LGBTQI+ community, particularly regarding gender identity. Even in areas where government officials do recognise the challenges facing LGBTQI+ Tunisians, state officials sometimes express a view that these issues are “negligible” compared to other challenges that Tunisians face, such as poverty and unemployment, and are unimportant in the eyes of most Tunisians.

Tunisia-Related Asylum Case Law  

Below are some examples of relevant case law surrounding LGBTQI+ individuals: 

• In 2023, it was reported that five of the Kairouan Six had successfully applied for asylum abroad. The case of the Kairouan Six is discussed below. 
• In 2021, it was reported that a Tunisian woman was granted refugee status in the UK on the basis of her bisexuality. In Tunisia, she had been subject to harassment due to her appearance. After she had entered the UK as a visitor, her sexuality was discovered by her family in Tunisia. She claimed asylum in the UK on the ground of fear of persecution on account of her sexuality, which was now known. The court applied the case of HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 31 to demonstrate she had a well-founded fear of persecution on account of her sexuality and that her removal would breach the non-refoulement principle of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
• In 2021, LGBTQI+ activist and Damj Association member, Rania Amdouni, was granted asylum in France following her release from Tunisian prison. It was reported that she was offered a visa upon her release from prison by the French Embassy in Tunisia and made an asylum claim to the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). The case of Rania Amdouni is discussed below. 
• In 2020, LGBTQI+ activist Mounir Baatour sought asylum in France following death threats. Baatour, who had stood for election in Tunisia as the only openly gay presidential candidate, was contacted by the police notifying him that he was under serious threat. Baatour was accepted as a political refugee in France.
• N.S. v Secretary of State for the Home Department: In 2015, the Upper Tribunal dismissed a Tunisian lesbian’s appeal against a decision to refuse her application for asylum. The court found that only same sex activity between males was criminalised in Tunisia. In support of this, the court cited a report from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), published in 2014, which referred to an English translation of the unofficial French version of Article 230 of Tunisia’s Penal Code (which only mentions sodomy), as opposed to the Arabic version which makes it clear that same-sex sexual activity between women is also criminalised. The court thus found that lesbian women in Tunisia faced discrimination that fell short of legal persecution.  

LGBTQI+ Related Case Law

As LGBTQI+ arrests in Tunisia are often made under several different Articles of the Penal Code, it is challenging to gather data on why defendants are arrested or charged (Article 19: page 33). No specific case law or official court reporting from Tunisia has been found in the public domain concerning the enforcement of laws criminalising LGBTQI+ persons. Cases of enforcement notified by local activists and organisations to ILGA and by local and international media outlets are outlined below. 

Transgender-related case law 

• In 2023, it was reported that a Tunisian Court rejected a transgender man’s application for legal gender recognition. According to reports, the presiding judge deemed the application haram (religiously forbidden in Islam) and ruled that the applicant suffered a mental illness rather than a medical condition. The applicant had submitted medical documentation detailing a longstanding struggle with gender dysphoria, including years of therapy, hormone replacement treatment, and certain surgeries, despite the limited availability and high cost of such care in Tunisia. The court referenced two cases with differing outcomes: Case No. 10298 of 1993 in the Court of Appeal, which denied legal gender recognition, and Case No. 12304 of 2018 in the Tunis Court of First Instance (discussed below), which granted it. In its ruling, the court emphasised that the applicant had not undergone a phalloplasty and had experienced normal female puberty. It concluded that the applicant’s desire to be recognised as male was driven by psychological inclination, rather than biological necessity, citing the Islamic legal principle that necessities overrule prohibition. Additionally, the court drew on Egyptian Islamic and legal jurisprudence, which permits sex correction procedures for intersex individuals to conform to the gender binary but prohibits gender-affirming surgeries for transgender individuals. 
• In Case No. 12304 of 2018, the Tunis Court of First Instance granted legal gender recognition and a name change to a transgender man who had received gender affirming care in Germany. After reviewing medical evidence, the court recognised gender dysphoria as a psychological condition rather than a mental illness. It found that the applicant had experienced a mental breakdown and two suicide attempts as a result of his gender dysphoria. This was deemed a state of necessity, which justified the legal recognition of his gender change. The court concluded that the applicant’s gender-affirming surgery was a medically necessary intervention intended to resolve the conflict between his biological sex and psychological state.

Reports of arrests

• In February 2025, it was reported that, between 26 September 2024 and 31 January 2025, at least 84 people had been arrested, detained or prosecuted in Tunisia based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. 
• In March 2023, it was reported that the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior had launched a series of raids targeting LGBTQI+ people following the arrest of a transgender woman named Maya (discussed below) in December 2022. 
• In December 2022, Tunisian police reportedly raided a home without a warrant in Hammamet, where several individuals, including a transgender woman named Maya, were staying. According to a joint communication to several UN special procedures by Damj Association and the Tunisian branch of the World Organisation Against Torture, Maya and her friends were detained, beaten, and humiliated by the police. While two individuals were released, Maya and another individual were coerced into signing a statement declaring that they were in a homosexual relationship, without being informed of their right to a lawyer. Maya later informed her lawyer that during the police interrogation, she was forcibly undressed and sexually harassed. The prosecutor of Grombalia ordered her to be placed in the men’s prison at Mornaguia, where her hair was forcibly shaved and she was subjected to further humiliation by the prison guards. At her hearing before the Grombalia Chamber of Criminal Affairs, while still bearing visible signs of physical abuse, Maya was sentenced to three years in prison under Article 230 of Tunisia’s Penal Code on grounds of sodomy. Her sentence was later reduced on appeal, and she was released. The case was subsequently referred by Damj and the OMCT to several UN Special Procedures. 
• In February 2021, Rania Amdouni, a LGBTQI+ rights activist and member of Damj Association, reportedly visited a police station to file a complaint about harassment she had been subjected to by a police officer who had directed homophobic insults at her while she was dining at a restaurant. She reportedly got into an argument with the police officers, who proceeded to arrest her. She was detained, allegedly sexually assaulted by the police on the way to prison and sentenced to six months in prison by the District Court of Tunis under Article 125 (insulting a public official), Article 315 (contempt of court) and Article 316 (disturbing the peace) of Tunisia’s Penal Code. The Appeals Court in Tunis released her with a fine of 200 Dinars (approximately 60 Euros).
• In January 2021, it was reported that the Tunisian government had used digital targeting to investigate and arrest LGBTQI+ individuals, including activists.
• In 2020, it was reported by Damj Association that two men’s refusal to consent to anal examinations was permitted as evidence when considering their guilt for alleged “sodomy“. 
• In 2020, Damj Association reported that it assisted LGBTQI+ people at police stations in 75 cases and responded to 98 requests for legal consultations. Additionally, Damj Association reported 12 prison sentences against transgender people and gay men under Articles 230, 225, and 125 of Tunisia’s Penal Code between March and September 2020. 
• In 2019, according to Damj Association and Avocats Sans Frontières, 121 individuals were convicted under Article 230 of the Tunisia’s penal code, with anal examinations used as the basis for these convictions.
• In 2019, an alleged rape victim was imprisoned for engaging in homosexual acts by a Tunisian court. 
• In 2015, six Tunisian men who were students in the city of Kairouan, known as the Kairouan Six were sentenced to three years prison for sodomy. The men underwent anal examinations. In 2025, their sentences were reduced to a month in prison (which they had already served), a fine and exile from Kairouan.
• In 2013, a male high-school student (Amir) reported to police that he had been attacked and raped by another man with whom he was previously in a relationship. In response to making the report, the police told Amir that he must confess to his homosexuality or be forced to undergo an anal examination. Amir was subsequently subjected to an anal examination, during which derogatory comments were reportedly made. Shortly thereafter, Amir was sentenced to one year in prison. Four years later, this was dismissed on appeal.

In 2012, a transgender woman in Tunis was arrested when a police officer asked to see her identity document and discovered she was not cisgender. She was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment under Article 226 bis for “offending public morals“, and her sentence was carried out in a men’s prison.