clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Tunisia: Demonstrators demand release of political prisoners

December 24, 2024 at 5:26 pm

People hold placards demanding the release of political prisoners during a demonstration on December 10, 2024 in Tunis, Tunisia. [Photo by Hasan Mrad/DeFodi Images News via Getty Images]

Scores of Tunisians demonstrated in the capital Tunis today to demand the release of political prisoners.

“No judiciary, no law. Honourable people in prisons,” read a banner waved by protesters who gathered outside the Court of Cassation in Tunis, according to an Anadolu reporter.

The protest was organised by the National Salvation Front, a coalition of five Tunisian parties opposing the country’s President Kais Saied.

“We stand here today to defend the political prisoners who have been jailed for nearly two years and suffering in their prison cells,” said Riyadh Chouaibi, a political adviser to Ennahda Movement leader Rached Ghannouchi.

He noted that over 50 people are still imprisoned on accusations of conspiring against the state, including several politicians.

Prominent among those held are Jawhar Bin Mubarak, a member of the National Salvation Front, Issam Chebbi, secretary general of the Republican Party, and Abdel-Hamid Jalasi, a senior leader of the Ennahda Movement.

While the Tunisian president accuses his opponents of conspiring against the state and being behind the country’s crises, the opposition accuses him of persecuting opposition figures, especially those who oppose his measures which he imposed in July 2021.

Tunisia has been in the throes of a deep political crisis that has aggravated the country’s economic conditions since 2021 when Saied ousted the government and dissolved parliament.

READ: Tunisia opposition demands release of political detainees