Tunisia: Citizens Testing Right-to-Information Law

Tunisia's first freedom of information law, approaching its third anniversary, significantly advances the rights of citizens to get information from publicly funded institutions, Human Rights Watch said today. The law's real impact, however, depends on the actual authority of a body created to compel responses from uncooperative institutions.

"With its right-to-information law, Tunisia is once again leading the Arab world in promoting transparency in public institutions," said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "But the verdict is still out on whether the enforcement system for making government information public will have teeth."

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