Tunis, Tunisia – A whole bunch of black-clad legal professionals crammed the slender Boulevard Ben Bnet outdoors Tunis’s bar affiliation headquarters as they protested the arrests of two of their very own.
Thursday was the second day of strikes in a darkish week for Tunisian civil society as safety forces swept up journalists and activists in what rights teams have characterised as an extra crackdown on dissent.
“The regime’s equipment is working very effectively, which means it devours anybody who has a crucial perspective on the state of affairs, … legal professionals, journalists, bloggers, residents or associations,” Romdhane Ben Amor of the Ligue Tunisienne pour la protection des droits de l’homme (LTDH, the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights) stated.
Ben Amor stated President Kais Saied, like populists the world over, sides with these he sees because the folks towards the elites, encouraging them accountable others for his or her difficulties.
“So, after all, Kais Saied from now till the elections [scheduled for November] has an extended listing of people, associations, events and journalists whom he’ll regularly criminalise to at all times preserve the sympathy of his electoral base,” Ben Amor stated.
The purge
Saied, a former regulation professor elected in 2019, swept to energy on widespread Tunisian anger and frustration over politics considered corrupt and self-serving.
After dismissing parliament in July 2021, Saied started rebuilding Tunisia in line with his design, ignoring the acute, unresolved monetary disaster that led to its 2011 revolution. He blamed “worldwide plots towards Tunisia”, rewrote the structure and purged his critics in politics and the media.
He oversaw the arrest of leaders of the self-styled Muslim Democratic Ennahdha occasion, together with former parliamentary Speaker Rached Ghannouchi in addition to the occasion’s archrival, Abir Moussi.
He weakened the beforehand vibrant media, introducing Decree 54, criminalising the publication or broadcast of any info the state subsequently deems false. And he has battled the judiciary, restructuring it to his personal design.
Within the protesting throng on Thursday was Lamine Benghazi of Avocats Sans Frontiers (Legal professionals With out Borders).
“The wave of repression we witnessed this week clearly marks a brand new threshold for Saied and Tunisia,” Benghazi stated because the noise of the group virtually drowned him out.
“These elements of civil society that prevented the repression that adopted the [July 2021 events] now appear to be the first targets of the authorities. Arrests, raids and investigations on NGOs engaged on migrant rights have all multiplied over the previous few weeks.”
The outlook for Tunisia’s civil society, whose leads have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015, is grim, he stated.
“Our concern is that this crackdown will broaden to different teams, particularly these engaged on democracy and rule of regulation and who’re crucial of the route Tunisia is taking. The very fact the discussions over the decree governing associations have resumed as civil society is underneath assault is not any coincidence,” he stated.
Benghazi referred to a regulation that parliament – now in a vastly weakened state – has lengthy been discussing. If handed, it could pressure civil society teams to hunt permission from authorities to function, Amnesty Worldwide stated in October.
Arrests denounced
Anger was tangible among the many protesters outdoors the imposing colonial courthouse. Slogans from the 2011 revolution rang out – “The folks wish to topple the regime” – as demonstrators denounced the remedy of their colleagues.
Sonia Dahmani was seized on the bar affiliation on Saturday by masked police who stormed the constructing in entrance of tv cameras to arrest her, reportedly in connection to a passing quip she had made about Tunisia on a tv programme.
Lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba was taken on Monday after an preliminary nationwide strike by legal professionals to protest Dahmani’s arrest. Witnesses stated police once more violently entered the bar affiliation, breaking home windows and doorways earlier than detaining Zagrouba.
Zagrouba had been with Dahmani throughout her court docket look that day and energetic within the strike. The Ministry of the Inside charged him with verbally and bodily attacking the police, which his defence denied.
Video of Zagrouba’s late-night arrest exhibits him being taken on a stretcher from the bar affiliation, and sources informed Al Jazeera {that a} photographer masking the occasion had his digicam seized.
On Wednesday, Zagrouba’s legal professionals informed a court docket he had been tortured earlier than he collapsed and was taken to hospital, forcing the listening to’s postponement.
In keeping with the Tunisian bar affiliation, Zagrouba had “traces of bodily violence on completely different elements of his physique, which have been examined by the investigating choose, confirming that he was tortured throughout his detention”.
“The Tunisian authorities have managed to subordinate the judiciary … and to successfully flip courts and the prosecutor’s workplace into instruments of oppression,” Mentioned Benarbia, director of the Center East-North Africa programme on the Worldwide Fee of Jurists, informed Al Jazeera.
“By focusing on impartial legal professionals, the authorities are dismantling the remaining pillar on which the honest administration of justice stands, …. a part of a wider marketing campaign to intimidate and silence the authorized career, one of many final traces of defence towards the federal government’s crackdown,” he added.
In an announcement to native radio, the Inside Ministry denied that Zagrouba had been assaulted at any level and threatened to prosecute anybody sharing false info.
Crackdown after crackdown
On the identical night as Dahmani’s arrest, TV and radio presenter Borhen Bsaies and political commentator Mourad Zeghidi have been additionally arrested underneath an “anti-fake information” cybercrime regulation. Bsaies’s lawyer stated no correct proof had been supplied to indicate his consumer had violated the regulation.
A choose dominated on Wednesday that each could be held till Might 22 on fees of getting breached Decree 54.
Bssais and Zeghidi are the newest in an extended line of journalists accused of breaching Decree 54 or comparable fees.
In keeping with Zied Dabbar, head of the Nationwide Union of Tunisian Journalists, a minimum of 60 journalists and commentators have to date been summoned underneath the regulation.
Amongst them is radio host Haythem El Mekki, who’s being pursued after saying in April final 12 months that the Sfax morgue was unable to deal with the variety of refugee our bodies it was receiving.
These discovered responsible of getting breached Decree 54 face a high quality of fifty,000 dinars ($16,000) and a jail sentence of 5 years. The jail sentence may double to 10 years if the offence includes a public official.
“Tunisian authorities should urgently reverse this vital backsliding on human rights,” stated Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s regional director for the Center East and North Africa. “They have to stop this judicial harassment and launch all these detained solely for the train of their freedom of expression and freedom of affiliation.”
Tunisia can also be witnessing an inflow of sub-Saharan Africans who arrive hoping to catch a ship to Europe – and a purge of teams defending them.
On Might 6, Saied repeated claims, with out proof, to his safety council of “plots towards Tunisia” pertaining to the presence of sub-Saharan Africans.
On the identical day, Saadia Mosbah, president of the anti-racism organisation Mnemty (My Dream) and Mnemty programme coordinator Zied Rouin have been jailed on “terrorism” and cash laundering fees.
The next day, Human Rights Watch stated, the president and vice chairman of the United Nations-partnered Tunisian Refugee Council have been arrested after inviting Tunisian resorts to bid to accommodate refugees.
This crackdown on their advocates comes as police persecution of the hundreds of Black refugees and migrants in Tunisia will increase, together with deporting them to Libya, which Saied confirmed.
Mosbah stays in custody. Rouin was launched shortly after his arrest.
European backing
As Tunisia retreats from the democratic positive aspects of its revolution, it might have misplaced a few of its sheen, however its standing as a transit level for tens of hundreds of sub-Saharan African refugees means it’ll stay a precedence for European politicians who concern arrivals from “the south” on their shores.
Far-right ItalianPrime Minister Giorgia Meloni has visited Tunisia many instances, most just lately in April, to fulfill with Saied to debate stemming migration in Tunisia earlier than it proceeds north.
Meloni’s eagerness to assist Saied is matched solely by that of the European Union, which has made hundreds of thousands of euros in monetary help obtainable to assist shore up Tunisia’s financial system and border safety regardless of rights abuses by the federal government being properly documented.
Nonetheless, each the EU and the USA Division of State have expressed concern over these newest purges with State Division spokesperson Vedant Patel saying the raids are “inconsistent with what we expect are common rights which might be explicitly assured within the Tunisian Structure and we’ve been clear about in any respect ranges”.
No point out has been manufactured from any additional motion.
