Before 2011, Tunisia has been under the rule of a dictator. This, had giving the local police the right to violence with no repercussion. Since then, police brutality hasn’t vanished, instead, the police switched to being protected by the police union, allowing them to resort to violence systematically. This limitless authority, has led, over the years, to several cases of rapes, comas and even deaths of civilians by police officers around Tunisia. One of these cases is the one of Omar Laabidi an 18 year old who was forced into drowning in the Oued Milliane river by 14 officers after he escaped a stadium riot. The events happened in Rades, a suburb of Tunis on March 2018. For four years, the police officers were protected by their union and never even showed up to their set trials let alone get arrested.

On the week of Omar’s fourth hearing, on March 2022, the city of Rades was deprived of water leaving the only available source of water the river where he drowned. The Tunisian League for The Defense of Human Rights saw this event, not as a coincidence, but as the awakening of the river, the most important, yet unheard, witness of this trial. The idea was to give the water a voice to testify about the injustice it had witnessed around the conditions of Omar’s drowning. Water from the river was collected, purified and placed into canisters with the label: The water of Justice. On the back of the canister, labels were printed with the testimonial: “… I am the drowning water in the river of injustice and I have witnessed them…”. The canisters provided hundreds of homes with water and told thousands the testimonial of the unheard witness.

The case of Omar Laabidi wasn’t a mystery in Tunisia, everyone heard about it, everyone knew the truth about it, but no one could do anything. Four years after his death, hope was starting to fade. On the one hand, we needed the help of the public to fight the system and, on the other hand, the public needed a symbol to reignite the movement. When the city of Rades was deprived of water, we saw the opportunity to introduce a new unconventional witness that wouldn’t fear police repercussion: The water of justice. With the Water of Justice, we gave the media something new to talk about around Omar’s case, we gave the public a symbol to rally around and we gave the court a new witness.

A few days before the trial, we gathered the water from the river where Omar died. We first purified it for the people who really needed the water that week. Then, we placed it into canisters. We started by distributing them to the people who needed water the most, then to anyone that showed sympathy towards this fight for justice. A few days after, during the first protest, people started using the canisters. The symbol was so strong more people used it but most importantly it caught the attention of the media. The canisters started appearing everywhere: in the streets, in stadiums, on television, in the hands of celebrities and in the political scenery as the secretary general of the Tunisian General Union of Labor endorsed the movement. When the water of justice gained enough credibility, the lawyer of Omar’s family, introduced him on the tribunal as an unheard witness.

The first impacts were experienced in the streets as people in need of water gathered in hundreds instantly to get the Water of Justice canisters. The canisters started appearing in manifestations allowing people to shout loud and clear their opposition simply by raising one. In a matter of hours, the petition printed on the back was signed over 8000 times. Our symbol, the canisters, caught the national media channels who had something new to discuss about the case after 4 years of stagnation. And this same symbol, gathered over 30 volunteering associations. Celebrities and politicians showed their endorsement publicly. The Water of Justice, as a witness, was introduced to the court as an unheard witness. With the help of a simple canister, four years after the death of Omar Laabidi, justice was made as 12 police officers got arrested, an unbelievable, impossible and unprecedented event in Tunisia.