Families of detainees go to Africa court
TUNIS: The families of Tunisian opposition figures detained in a government crackdown filed a case with Africa’s human rights court yesterday seeking the immediate release of their loved ones.
Since early February, the authorities in the North African country have arrested more than 20 political opponents and other personalities, sparking condemnations from the international community and rights groups.
Those detained include Rached Ghannouchi, the former speaker of parliament and one of the highest profile critics of President Kais Saied, who dissolved the assembly in July 2021 as part of a power grab allowing him to rule by decree.
Ghannouchi, 81, the head of Tunisia’s Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha, was arrested in April and sentenced on May 15 to one year in prison on terrorism-related charges.
His daughter Yusra Ghannouchi said the charges against her father were “politically motivated and fabricated” and part of a bid by Mr Saied to “eliminate the opposition”.
Mr Saied claims those detained in the crackdown were “terrorists” involved in a “conspiracy against state security”.
Opponents have dubbed his actions a “coup” and a return to autocratic rule in the only democracy that emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings in the region more than a decade ago.
Yusra Ghannouchi and other relatives of the detainees filed the case in the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights in Arusha, Tanzania, as part of a global campaign for their freedom.
“We hope this will lead to their release and to justice for them,” she said in Nairobi on the eve of a trip to Arusha. “They are not silent and we will not be silent,” said Ms Ghannouchi, a 45-year-old mother of three who lives in Britain.
She said the relatives were also calling for the US, the EU and Britain to impose targeted sanctions against Mr Saied and several of his ministers who are “all implicated in human rights violations”.
Their British lawyer Rodney Dixon said they wanted the Arusha court to find Tunisia’s actions were in breach of Africa’s human rights charter and make a provisional order for the release of the detainees.