Post-revolutionary Tunisia faces the same security concerns as Egypt, but is addressing them with more maturity, writes Eman Ragab* I was recently in Tunisia attending a conference on "Revolution and Democratisation in the Arab World", an event in which Al-Nahda leader Rached Gannouchi and Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali spoke. From what they said, it was clear that Tunisia has the same security problems we have encountered in Egypt -- thugs in the streets, robbers on the highway, police brutality, and the rest of it. Many of the security problems in Tunisia and Egypt, it appears, have to do with the performance of the police force. In both countries, the police reaction to demonstrations was uncannily similar. And in both countries the need to reform the police force is hardly in question. Just as we had tragic scenes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, in the Port Said Stadium, and in other locations since the 25 January Revolution, Tunisians cannot forget the July 2011 and November 2011 clashes between the police and demonstrators. All of the above events resulted in the loss not only of life and limb but also of the indispensable trust between the people and law enforcers. Egypt and Tunisia, having undergone pretty similar political upheavals, are now faced with two identical challenges. One is that of mending relations between the police force and the people in general. Political activists, political parties and the followers of political Islam all have grievances related to police actions and all have the right to expect a different style of law enforcement in the future. In both Egypt and Tunisia, the police was trained to regard Islamists, and any others who challenged the ubiquitous authority of the state, as a peril to be fought back. Therefore, any credible reforms should restore the faith of politically active groups in the police. The job of the police should be confined to fighting crime, not preventing citizens from exercising their lawful rights. In Tunisia, the transitional government has acted swiftly on that issue. Officers who were suspected of involvement in the killing of demonstrators were removed from active service. This wasn't always easy. When the government decided to dismiss one police chief implicated in widespread abuse, he gathered 15,000 of his police force sympathisers and staged a sit-in around the ministry, refusing to budge. The sit-in ended when members of the public chased the policemen away from the ministry's perimeter. In Egypt's case, action to reform the Interior Ministry was half hearted. For example, when former interior minister Mansour Eissawi promised to purge his ministry, he removed 505 police officers, including two dozen accused of killing demonstrators, from active service but kept them in the ministry in one function or another. The bonds of loyalty and the ethics of camaraderie may be commendable in normal situations. But in this particular case, they proved to be an obstacle to change. In Tunisia, those in charge of reforming the police understand that the issue is not just about personnel, but also about the core doctrine of the police. To drive this point home, Tunisia brought police experts from Germany and other countries to train the local police in matters of human rights and law enforcement. What the training programme emphasises, above all, is that the job of the police is to defend the people against crime, not the regime against the people, as Lazhar Akermi, a civilian who is closely involved in the reforms, said. Akermi, who is a lawyer and activist, now holds the title of "minister delegate" at the Tunisian interior ministry. In Egypt's case, the only reforms attempted so far have been left to ministry officials, who are understandably reluctant to change the ways of the past in any drastic manner. I know from personal experience that a fair degree of resistance to reform exists inside Egypt's interior ministry. During workshops on the reform of the Egyptian police that I attended, any suggestion that we may benefit from foreign expertise in this regard was met with stiff opposition. There is no shortage of offers to help from other countries, including the United States. These offers are routinely dismissed by ministry officials who don't wish to see much restructuring taking place and who believe that the Egyptian revolution was a mere blip on the national radar. For them, it is only a matter of time before the country slips back into its old ways. Tunisia now has a civilian interior minister. His top assistant, Lazhar Akermi, also a civilian, has penned a document for reform called "The White Book". With civilians in control, the idea that reform of the police will be done by interior ministry officials -- which is Egypt's mistake -- is now out of the question. Another challenge facing both Egypt and Tunisia is that of maintaining the professional makeup of the police force. In other words, the police force has to act in the same exact way regardless of which party or who is in power. The police must not be lured, or coerced, into protecting the powers that be. Tunisian officials have made it clear that major government institutions, including the interior ministry, the army, and the executive agencies, must maintain a non-partisan stand. In the opening session of the conference mentioned above, Prime Minister Jebali promised that the government, while attempting to modernise various executive agencies, would not meddle with the professional traits of these agencies. In Egypt, no such promises have been made. And the current debate on whether officers should grow their beards, even in breach of long-standing regulations, is less than reassuring. The point I am trying to make here is not whether beards are professional or not, religiously required or not. The point is that once you start meddling with long-standing traditions, the line between professionalism and partisanship could be blurred. The maintenance of professionalism in Egypt's state agencies is a crucial issue at the moment. With the Islamists in control of 243 seats of the People's Assembly's 508 seats, there is a risk of state institutions gravitating to the image of an Islamic state most of these parties so covetously admire. In its election programme, the Nour Party urged the use of the police force in maintaining public morality. The Salafi presidential candidate, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, is also on record as promoting the idea of an "Islamic police". In short, many Islamists see the police force as an enforcer of Islamic Sharia, not of the country's penal code, which is protected by various constitutional instruments, including the Constitutional Declaration of March 2011. The seemingly trivial issue of growing beards by officers of the interior ministry, once replicated in other government institutions with a certain profile to maintain, such as the army, the judiciary, and the Foreign Ministry, has the potential of disrupting long-held professional norms, which brings up the issue of how much we can allow government institutions to be influenced by the preferences of the party or parties in power. Police reform must be handled in a professional manner. It must also be settled through a social debate in which all political groups -- conventional as well as revolutionary -- should take part. The police needs to be restructured in a way that consolidates, rather than compromises, its professionalism. The police and other crucial state agencies must stay at an equal distance from all political parties, for their main job is to meet the needs of all citizens regardless of party and religious affiliations. * The writer is a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
