Rights group accuses Tunisian gov't of moving to dismantle largest opposition party
Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) – The Tunisian authorities have intensified their attack on opponents of President Kais Saied’s 2021 power grab, moving to neutralise the country’s largest political party, Ennahda, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.
Since December 2022, it said, the Tunisian government has arrested at least 17 current or former members of the party, including its leader, and shut its offices across the country.
The human rights advovate asked the authorities to immediately release all those arbitrarily detained and end restrictions on freedom of association and assembly.
It noted that the arrests had continued following a wave in mid-February that targeted figures of various political affiliations, bringing the number of public figures deemed critical of Saied behind bars to at least 30. Most have been accused of “conspiring against state security”,
The Ennahda-linked detainees include four former ministers and several former parliament members. The party President and former speaker of parliament Rached Ghannouchi and two party vice presidents, Ali Laarayedh and Nourredine Bhiri, are among them. None has been formally charged.
“After demonising the Ennahda Party and making serious accusations without proof, President Saied’s authorities have moved to effectively dismantle it,” said Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Tunisian authorities’ latest tactic to muzzle critical voices consists of tossing around conspiracy charges left and right against all those who challenge the president’s increasingly authoritarian bent.”
The authorities have accused most of the detainees of “conspiracy against state security” without clarifying the criminal acts that constitute the alleged conspiracy.
Human Rights Watch said seven Ennahda-related cases for which it has been able to get additional information show "the political nature of the arrests, the reliance on flimsy evidence, and disregard for due-process rights". At least four of these cases amount to barring peaceful expression.
Founded in 1981, Ennahda – formerly the Islamic Tendency Movement – was legalised only in 2011, after a popular uprising ousted the longtime authoritarian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Ennahda played a central role in all government coalitions until 2019.
Ennahda President Ghannouchi has been a prominent opponent of Saied’s "one-man-rule" that followed his seizure of extraordinary powers on 25 July, 2021, Human Rights Watch said. On 17 April, plainclothes officers arrested Ghannouchi at his home. They did not show an arrest warrant, one of his lawyers said.
On 20 April, an investigative judge issued a detention warrant for Ghannouchi on charges of attempting to “change the nature of the state” and “conspiring against internal state security”, crimes for which a death sentence is possible. The accusations are based on a warning by Ghannouchi on 15 April during a meeting that alienating opposition political movements, including Ennahda and “the left,” was a “project for civil war”.Over the past 18 months, Ghannouchi, 81, has been questioned in relation to 19 different investigations, his lawyer Mokhtar Jemai said.
The police closed Ennahda's headquarters in Tunis on 18 April, without presenting any court decision or formal document, another lawyer said. Security forces have prevented members from accessing the offices of the party across the country, the lawyer said.
The same day, the authorities shut the Tunis headquarters of a party known as the Tunisia Will Movement, which hosted activities of the National Salvation Front (NSF), an opposition coalition cofounded by Ennahda.
The two Ennahda vice presidents, Laarayedh and Bhiri, are being held in Mornaguia prison. Lasrayedh, 67, a former interior and prime minister, is facing prosecution for decisions he made in office between 2011 and 2014 that allegedly failed to combat fundamentalism and Islamic extremist violence “in the necessary way”. He has been held since 19 December, without being brought before a judge.
Ruling by decree, Saied has systematically undermined judicial indeendence, raising fair trial concerns for these and other people accused after they criticized him.
In February 2022, Saied dissolved the High Judicial Council, which was mandated to guarantee the independence of the judiciary, and appointed a temporary body over which he has broad control.
In June 2022, he granted himself the authority to unilaterally dismiss magistrates and fired 57. The authorities have refused to comply with an administrative court order to reinstate 49 of them.
“The Tunisian authorities should stop their reprisal against Ennahda and other opponents and release all those jailed in the absence of credible evidence of crimes,” Chellali said.
-0- PANA MA 11May2023
