Tunisia’s opposition says the charges are trumped up as police impose a five-year prison sentence.
Police in Tunisia A key opposition figure, Ayachi Hammami, was arrested at his home to enforce a five-year prison sentence after an appeals court convicted dozens of political opponents of the administration on charges of conspiring against state security.
Last week a court confirmed prison terms of between four and 45 years for opposition leaders, businessmen and lawyers accused of plotting to overthrow President Qais Saeed, who has cracked down on the opposition for years.
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“If you are watching this video, I have been arrested,” Hammami, who served as human rights minister in 2020, said in a video posted by his family on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
“I have spent many years fighting for democracy, freedom, rights. I will turn my cell into a new front of struggle,” he said, adding that he planned to go on a hunger strike.
After his arrest, a co-opponent has been arrested Chaima IsaHe was detained last week during a protest in Tunis to impose a 20-year prison sentence in the same case.
The broad indictment targets about 40 people, including former officials and former intelligence chief Kamel Guizani.
Opposition members say the charges against him – seeking to destabilize the country and topple the government – are fabricated and designed to quell discontent through the judiciary, adding that the measures are a sign of the country’s deepening authoritarianism.
Najib Chebbi, who heads the National Salvation Front, the main coalition challenging Saeed and who has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, is expected to make a massive police arrest.
Twenty of those accused have fled abroad and have been sentenced in absentia, in what analysts describe as one of the biggest political trials in Tunisia’s recent history.
Saeed insisted he was not interfering with the judiciary, but when the trial began in 2023, he said judges who acquitted the accused would be considered accomplices.
Rights groups have condemned the sentence. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called for the sentences to be immediately overturned, saying they are politically motivated.
Responding to the Tunis Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the conviction on 28 November, Amnesty’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director, Sarah Hashash, said: “The Tunis Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the unjust sentence in the so-called ‘conspiracy case’ is a damning indictment of the Tunis court’s judicial system … ignoring the litany of fair trial violations that have plagued this sham case since day one.
Said suspended parliament in July 2021 in what opponents describe as a “coup”, then ruled with a dictatorship. Many of these powers were included in a new constitution approved in a widely boycotted 2022 referendum, while media figures, activists and lawyers critical of Said were detained under a “fake news” law passed the same year.
Saeed has shown no sign of cracking down on the opposition, which has seen prominent politicians across the political spectrum jailed.
These include Jawhar ben Mabarekco-founder of the country’s main opposition alliance; Issam Chebbi, leader of the centrist Al Joumhouri party; Rached GhannouchiEnnahda Party leader and former Speaker of Parliament; Former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh; and Abir Moussi, head of the Free Constitutional Party.