Tunisia court orders release of top rights activist

By AFP

Prominent Tunisian human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine was released from jail on Wednesday after an appeals court ruling, AFP journalists said, although she remains barred from leaving the country.

A court spokesman earlier said Bensedrine cannot leave Tunisia as she still faces charges in other cases.

"I can only be happy, as no one wants to be in this hole," she said upon her release on Wednesday evening from Manouba prison in the suburbs of the capital.

"Breathing the air of freedom like this afternoon and after seeing a just a small patch of blue sky (from her cell), I prayed to God to see the entire sky, and my wish was granted."

Bensedrine, 74, headed the now-defunct Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), which was tasked with uncovering abuses under the country's past autocratic rulers.

She had been detained since August for allegedly "falsifying" the commission's final report, which was published in 2020.

She has also been accused of accepting a bribe to include a passage accusing the Franco-Tunisian Bank (BFT) of corruption, an allegation she has denied.

Her husband, Omar Mestiri, told AFP before her release that Bensedrine "had suffered but is in good spirits".

"She is determined to fight to assert her rights," he said.

In January, Bensedrine, a former journalist, said she was going on hunger strike in protest at her detention. She was hospitalised 10 days later.

Announcing the hunger strike in a letter from Manouba, she had said she would "no longer tolerate the injustice that has struck me. Justice cannot be based on lies and slander, but on concrete and tangible pieces of evidence."

'Persecution'

Established in 2014 in the aftermath of Tunisia's 2011 revolution, the IVD was tasked with documenting state-led human rights violations between 1955 and 2013.

The period includes authoritarian rule in the North African country under presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted during the revolution.

The IVD received testimony from tens of thousands of Tunisian victims of abuses including rape and torture.

On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights chief denounced the "persecution of political opponents" in Tunisia, urging the authorities to halt a wave of arrests and arbitrary detentions.

Bensedrine's lawyer, Abderraouf Ayadi, said in December that the charges were part of a "politically motivated case fabricated against her".

"Tunisia's judiciary is currently under political influence," he added, arguing that the charges stemmed from her role as an outspoken critic of the government.

President Kais Saied was elected in 2019, after Tunisia emerged as the only democracy from the Arab Spring. But in 2021, he staged a sweeping power grab.

Critics and human rights groups have since warned of a rollback on freedoms.

Last August, a group of UN experts had called for Bensedrine to be given a fair trial, saying her arrest could amount to judicial harassment.

"In a context marked by the suppression of numerous dissenting voices, the arrest of Ms Bensedrine raises serious concerns about the respect of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in Tunisia and has a chilling effect on journalists, human rights defenders and civil society in general," they said in a joint statement.