In November 2014, three partners came together with the idea of creating a transitional justice observatory in Tunisia, a human sciences research unit with a focus on victims. The partners are the Tunis-based Kawakibi Centre for Democratic Transitions; Dutch NGO Impunity Watch; and the University of York, UK. The observatory is a human sciences research unit with six researchers and a programme to the end of 2016.
Its focus is on victims, their needs, their expectations and their vision of transitional justice. It was set up to compensate for the fact that, in this first "Arab Spring" country, the voice of victims of dictatorship is lacking in the transitional justice process that followed the January 14, 2011 revolution. The observatory's team quickly realized how victims' associations were trying to monopolize the voice of victims and use it for political ends. In addition, the observatory fills a gap, for even if there have been many reports on transitional justice in the last three years, there is a continuing lack of scientific research on the subject.
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