Family of detained ex-Tunisia minister launch sit-in for his release

The wife of Noureddine Bhiri, the deputy chairman of the Tunisian Ennahda party, yesterday said she would start a sit-in with her children in the hospital where her husband is being detained.

Saida Akremi told Al-Quds Al-Arabi that authorities were “responsible for my husband’s “life.”

“My children and I have decided to start a sit-in in the University Hospital Habib Bougatfa Bizerte, and we will not leave without him, alive or dead,” Akremi added, blaming the authorities for her husband’s “critical health condition.”

Bhiri’s defence team reported earlier that their hunger-striking client’s health was “in real danger.”

Sixty-two-year-old Bhiri, a former justice minister, was arrested on Friday in front of his house and was accused of “terrorism”. He was reported to have been refusing food or medication ever since.

Human Rights Watch has accused authorities of using “repressive dictatorship-era laws to snuff out criticism of the president.”

READ: Tunisia’s Ennahda slams interior minister’s ‘terrorism’ accusations