A well-known Tunisian activist was detained on Saturday as hundreds gathered in Tunis to voice anger over what they describe as escalating restrictions on civil liberties, according to an AFP journalist and several lawyers.
The demonstration took place a day after a major appeal trial resulted in roughly 40 public personalities, most of them outspoken critics of President Kais Saied, receiving severe sentences for alleged involvement in a plot against the state.
Among those sentenced was poet and political figure Chaima Issa, who received a 20-year term on Friday. Witnesses and her legal team said she was taken into custody while participating in Saturday’s protest.
“We were marching in the protest when a group of plainclothes officers grabbed her and pushed her inside a vehicle,” Issa’s lawyer, Samir Dilou, told AFP.
“They could have arrested her the day of the verdict at her home,” Dilou added. “She wasn’t going anywhere. If she wanted to go on the run, why would she be demonstrating?”
The rally — organised by Tunisia’s prominent women’s rights groups, the Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) and Aswat Nissa — condemned what participants described as an intensifying crackdown on dissent and human rights defenders.
“This protest comes amid the authorities’ systematic suppression of free speech and the free voices of activists, journalists and others,” said Nadia Benhamed, a senior ATFD member.
“We reject the suppression of freedoms,” she continued. “Freedom of expression and thought is our right.”
Tunisia was once considered the Arab Spring’s lone democratic success story.
However, since Saied executed a sweeping power consolidation in 2021, numerous rights organisations have accused the government of reversing hard-won democratic freedoms.
Scores of Saied’s critics have been taken to court or imprisoned, some on terrorism-related accusations and others under a 2022 law targeting those accused of “spreading false news”.
“We won’t give up on our gains and on our freedoms,” said protester and activist Manel Othmani. “We can’t surrender the freedom of speech we’ve gained since 2011.”
During Friday’s mass trial, defendants were issued sentences of up to 45 years, reduced from 66 handed down in April, on charges including “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, according to court files seen by AFP.
A European Parliament resolution passed on Thursday urged the release of “all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including political prisoners and human rights defenders” in Tunisia.
But Saied dismissed the resolution as “blatant interference”, arguing that the European Union could “learn lessons from us on rights and freedoms”.
What you should know
Tunisia’s arrest of activist Chaima Issa during a major protest highlights rising tensions over shrinking freedoms under President Kais Saied’s rule.
Since his 2021 power grab, critics, activists, and journalists have increasingly faced prosecution under broad security and misinformation laws.
The mass sentencing of dozens of opposition figures and the EU’s call for their release further underscore the country’s shifting political climate.
