Tunisian police detain leading human rights defender as crackdown on critics widens

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian police on Tuesday arrested prominent opposition lawyer and longtime human rights defender Ayachi Hammami at his home outside the capital, acting on a five-year prison sentence issued against him last week in a prominent “conspiracy against state security” case, his family said.

Hammami is among at least 40 individuals, including politicians and business figures, who were handed down sentences of between two and 45 years in prison in the same case. Rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International condemned the charges as politically driven and part of a broader systematic effort by President Kais Saied to quash dissent in the country once known as the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

After his arrest on Tuesday, Hammami announced in a pre-recorded video published on Facebook that he would begin an open-ended hunger strike until his demands for freedom are met.

“I will turn the cell that Kais Saied would lock me in into a space for struggle as well,” he said. “We are all victims of the oppression of this authority, let’s unite to change these conditions… Unity is the only evident and natural path for the people while faced with tyranny.”

His daughter, Fida Hammami, told The Associated Press that her father’s prison sentence was issued by “a court that lost all its independence” during Saied’s tenure. The verdict, she added, was the result of “a sham trial based on unfounded charges and riddled with violations of due process and fair trial rights.”

“My father’s arrest is only the latest example in the crackdown on dissent, political opposition and all forms of critical expression in Tunisia,” she said. “He has fought for human rights, justice and democracy all his life, and he will continue to do so from his prison cell.”

She said that her father was joining “dozens of men and women who are only imprisoned because they exercised their human rights, opposed the authoritarian drift in Tunisia, criticized the regime’s policies or worked to defend the most vulnerable.”

“They all deserve freedom,” she said. “He was steadfast and smiling until the end. He left us with a message of strength and inspiration, and nothing will change that.”

Hammami was among a broader group sentenced last week in verdicts issued by the Tunis Court of Appeal. Those decisions also led to the arrest of opposition figure and National Salvation Front leader Chaima Issa, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Issa was seized by plainclothes officers and forced into an unmarked civilian vehicle as she was going home after taking part in an opposition protest on Saturday. She has since announced she is beginning a hunger strike to protest the circumstances of her arrest.

Saied and his government rejected accusations that the proceedings are politically motivated, stating on multiple occasions that prosecutions are a necessary step to safeguard the state from what they describe as serious national security threats and alleged plots to destabilize the country.