TUNIS: A prominent Tunisian activist was arrested on Saturday as hundreds protested in the capital against the curtailing of freedoms, an AFP journalist and lawyers said.
The protest in Tunis came a day after a mass appeal trial saw some 40 public figures, mainly critics of President Kais Saied, handed hefty sentences over plotting against the state.
Poet and political figure Chaima Issa, who was handed a 20-year sentence during the trial on Friday, was arrested during the rally, lawyers and witnesses said.
“We were marching in the protest when a group of plainclothes officers grabbed her and pushed her inside a vehicle,” Issa’s lawyer, Samir Dilou, told AFP.
“They could have arrested her the day of the verdict at her home,” Dilou added. “She wasn’t going anywhere. If she wanted to go on the run, why would she be demonstrating?“
The protest, called by Tunisia’s leading women rights groups the Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) and Aswat Nissa, denounced what many see as a growing clampdown on dissent and rights defenders in Tunisia.
“This protest comes amid the authorities’ systematic suppression of free speech and the free voices of activists, journalists and others,” said Nadia Benhamed, a senior member of the ATFD.
“We reject the suppression of freedoms,” she added. “Freedom of expression and thought is our right.”
Tunisia emerged as the only democracy of the Arab Spring.
But since Saied staged a sweeping power grab in 2021, rights groups have criticized a major rollback on freedoms.
Dozens of Saied critics have been prosecuted or jailed, including on terrorism-related charges and under a law the president enacted in 2022 to prohibit “spreading false news.”
“We won’t give up on our gains and on our freedoms,” said Manel Othmani, another protester and activist. “We can’t surrender the freedom of speech we’ve gained since 2011.”
Friday’s mass trial saw defendants sentenced to up to 45 years in prison — down from 66 in April — over charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group,” according to court documents viewed by AFP.
A European Parliament vote on Thursday called for the release of “all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including political prisoners and human rights defenders” in Tunisia.
But Saied condemned the resolution as “blatant interference,” saying the European Union could “learn lessons from us on rights and freedoms.”
Prominent activist arrested as hundreds protest in Tunisia
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Prominent activist arrested as hundreds protest in Tunisia
- Poet and political figure Chaima Issa, who was handed a 20-year sentence during the trial on Friday, was arrested during the rally
- “This protest comes amid the authorities’ systematic suppression of free speech,” said Benhamed
Syria’s Kurds hail ‘positive impact’ of Turkiye peace talks
- “The peace initiative in Turkiye has had a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmad
- “We want a dialogue process with Turkiye, a dialogue that we understand as Kurds in Syria”
ISTANBUL: Efforts to broker peace between Turkiye and the Kurdish militant group PKK have had a “positive impact” on Syria’s Kurds who also want dialogue with Ankara, one of its top officials said Saturday.
Earlier this year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ended its four-decade armed struggle against Turkiye at the urging of its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan, shifting its focus to a democratic political struggle for the rights of Turkiye’s Kurdish minority.
The ongoing process has raised hopes among Kurds across the region, notably in Syria where the Kurds control swathes of territory in the north and northeast.
“The peace initiative in Turkiye has had a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast.
“We want a dialogue process with Turkiye, a dialogue that we understand as Kurds in Syria... We want the borders between us to be opened,” she said, speaking by video link to an Istanbul peace conference organized by Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party.
Speaking in Kurdish, she hailed Turkiye for initiating the peace moves, but said releasing Ocalan — who has led the process from his cell on Imrali prison island near Istanbul where he has been serving life in solitary since 1999 — would speed things up.
“We believe that Abdullah Ocalan being released will let him play a much greater role... that this peace and resolution process will happen faster and better.”
She also hailed Ankara for its sensitive approach to dialogue with the new regime in Damascus that emerged after the ousting of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad a year ago.
“The Turkish government has a dialogue and a relationship with the Syrian government. They also have open channels with us. We see that there is a careful approach to this matter,” she said.
Turkiye has long been hostile to the Kurdish SDF force that controls swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing it as an extension of PKK, and pushing for the US-backed force to integrate into the Syrian military and security apparatus.
Although a deal was reached to that end in March, its terms were never implemented.
“In this historic process, as the Middle East is being reorganized, Turkiye has a very important role. Peace in both countries — within Turkish society, Kurdish society and Arab society.. will impact the entire Middle East,” Ahmad said.
Syria’s Kurdish community believed coexistence was “fundamental” and did not want to see the nation divided, she said.
“We do not support the division of Syria or any other country. Such divisions pave the way for new wars. That is why we advocate for peace.”
