Teenager sentenced to four months behind bars for being trans
A teenager is currently behind bars for the ‘crime’ of being trans.
The 19-year-old woman has been sentenced to four months in prison on the grounds of “harm to good morals”.
According to her lawyer, Mounir Baatour, she was arrested in November of last year while celebrating at a Halloween party.
The lawyer says she was arrested for wearing women’s clothing.
He also claims police took her to the station, then tortured, humiliated and ridiculed her.
The woman was later set free, until being called into court on 19 January, and sentenced to four months behind bars, according to local media.
She is already behind bars as the sentence came into action immediately.
The trans woman was charged with insulting an official during the performance of his duties, harm to good morals, ostentatious demonstration of behavior contrary to modesty.
The incident happened in Tunisia.
While gender reassignment isn’t illegal in the country, social attitudes are very conservative, and same-sex activities are punishable with years in prison.
It’s not uncommon for noticeably trans people to be prosecuted as contravening ‘public decency’.
Her lawyer has said it’s “a file mounted from scratch by transphobia”.
It comes after two girls were arrested in Morocco for hugging.
The women faced up to three years in prison under the country’s strict laws, before finally being acquitted.
