Tunisia opponents to be tried on state security charges amid crackdown
TUNIS — A highly anticipated trial of several prominent Tunisian opposition figures accused of plotting against state security is set to start Tuesday, with critics and rights groups denouncing it as unfair and politically motivated.
The case has named around 40 high-profile defendants -- including former diplomats, politicians, lawyers and media figures -- some of whom have been outspoken critics of President Kais Saied.
Many were detained following a flurry of arrests in February 2023, after Saied dubbed them "terrorists".
The group faces charges of "plotting against the state security" and "belonging to a terrorist group", according to lawyers, which could entail hefty sentences.
They include politician Jawhar Ben Mbarek, a former senior figure in the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party Abdelhamid Jelassi, and Issam Chebbi, a founder of the opposition National Salvation Front (FSN) coalition -- all staunch critics of Saied.
Saied was elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged as the only democracy following the Arab Spring.
But in 2021, he staged a sweeping power grab, and human rights groups have since warned of a rollback on freedoms.
'Judicial madness'
The long-awaited case has also charged activists Khayam Turki and Chaima Issa, businessman Kamel Eltaief, and Bochra Belhaj Hmida, a former member of parliament and human rights activist now living in France.
French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy was also named among the accused, as a number of them are suspected of getting in contact with foreign parties and diplomats.
Addressing the public in a letter from his cell, Ben Mbarek said the case aimed at "the methodical elimination of critical voices" and he denounced "judicial harassment".
Ben Mbarek was one of the founders of the FSN, which remains the main opposition coalition to Saied.
His sister Dalila Msaddek, a lawyer who is part of the defence committee, told AFP the charges were "based on false testimony".
The defence committee has said that judicial authorities decided to hold the trial remotely, without the presence of the detained defendants.
Their relatives and rights groups said the move was not fair, calling for all the defendants to stand before the judge.
"It's one of the conditions for a fair trial," said Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, head of the FSN and himself named in the case.
Riadh Chaibi, a former Ennahdha official, said the case had "no reasoning".
"This is a case where the witnesses are secret, the evidence is secret and they want the trial to be secret too," he told reporters in the capital Tunis.
Also a member of Ennahdha, lawyer Samir Dilou called it "judicial madness".
'Arbitrary detentions'
Ben Mbarek's father, leftist activist Ezzeddine Hazgui, told AFP he felt "bitter" about voting for Saied in 2019.
His son, too, "had fought like a devil" to get Saied elected, according to Msaddek.
She said while several people prosecuted in the case are in custody, some remain free pending trial and others have fled abroad.
Other critics of Saied have been detained and charged in different cases, including under a law combatting "false news".
In early February, Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi, 83, was sentenced to 22 years in prison -- also for plotting against state security, though in a separate case.
The United Nations urged Tunisian authorities last month to bring "an end to the pattern of arrests, arbitrary detentions and imprisonment of dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, activists and politicians".
Tunisia's Foreign Ministry expressed "astonishment" over the UN's "inaccuracies and criticisms".
It insisted the cases cited by the UN involved "public law crimes unrelated to political, party or media activities, or the exercise of freedom of opinion and expression".
"Tunisia can give lessons to those who think they are in a position to make statements," it added.
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