Families of Four Sumud Flotilla Activists Demand Release from Detention in Tunisia

The families of four Tunisian activists who were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla have called on political and judicial authorities to release of their detained sons and drop all charges against them.

The Sumud Flotilla is the Gaza-bound group of aid vessels that attempted to break the Israeli-imposed blockade on the Strip before they were intercepted by Israel.

The four activists, identified as Nabil Al-Shanoufi, Ghassan Al-Hanshiri, Ghassan Al-Boughdiri, and Wael Nawar, have been held in Tunis’s Mornaguia Prison for more than five months.

In a joint statement issued on Sunday, the families detailed the deteriorating conditions surrounding the detention.

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“Today marks more than five months since our sons were thrown into Mornaguia Prison under harsh detention conditions that have severely impacted their physical and psychological well-being, while the suffering of both the detainees and their families continues to mount day by day,” the statement read.

The families strongly condemned the “baseless charges” leveled against the activists and called on Tunisian political and judicial authorities to respect the country’s historic solidarity with the Palestinian cause. They pointed to official rhetoric that considers normalization with Israel as “high treason.”

In their concluding remarks, the families appealed to all national, democratic, and progressive forces, as well as human rights advocates supporting Palestinian rights, to rally behind the detainees.

“Their case is not merely an individual matter,” the families emphasized, “it is a cause of values, a cause of freedom, and a cause of a nation that wishes to remain faithful to its history and its conscience.”

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