Politician Ayachi Hammami latest arrest in Tunisia opposition crackdown

Tunisia opposition says charges are fabricated, as police enforce a five-year prison sentence.

Police in Tunisia have arrested prominent opposition figure Ayachi Hammami at his home to enforce a five-year prison sentence after an appeals court upheld convictions against dozens of the administration’s political opponents on charges of conspiracy against state security.

The court last week confirmed jail terms ranging from four to 45 years for opposition leaders, business figures and lawyers accused of plotting to overthrow President Kais Saied, who has conducted a crackdown on opposition figures for years.

“If you are seeing this video, I have been arrested,” Hammami, who served as minister of human rights in 2020, said in a video posted by his family on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

“I have spent years fighting for democracy, freedom, rights. I will turn my cell into a new front of struggle,” he said, adding that he planned to go on hunger strike.

His arrest follows that of fellow opposition figure Chaima Issa, detained last week at a protest in Tunis to enforce a 20-year prison sentence in the same case.

The sweeping prosecution has targeted around 40 people, including former officials and the former head of intelligence, Kamel Guizani.

Twenty of those charged have fled abroad and were sentenced in absentia, in what analysts describe as one of the largest political prosecutions in Tunisia’s recent history.

Saied insists he does not interfere in the judiciary, but when the case was launched in 2023, he said judges who acquitted the accused would be considered accomplices.

Rights groups have condemned the convictions. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called for the immediate annulment of the sentences, saying they were politically motivated.

Responding to the Tunis Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the convictions on November 28, Amnesty’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director, Sara Hashash, said: “The decision by the Tunis Court of Appeal to uphold the unjust convictions in the so-called ‘conspiracy case’ is an appalling indictment of the Tunisian justice system … the Appeals Court has deliberately ignored the litany of fair trial violations that have plagued this sham case from day one.”

Saied suspended parliament in what opponents describe as a “coup” in July 2021, later ruling by decree. Many of those powers were incorporated into a new constitution ratified in a widely boycotted 2022 referendum, while media figures, activists and lawyers critical of Saied have been detained under a “fake news” law passed the same year.

Saied has shown no sign of letting up in his crackdown on the opposition, which has seen prominent politicians from across the political spectrum imprisoned.

They include Jawhar Ben Mbarek, the cofounder of the country’s main opposition alliance; Issam Chebbi, the leader of the centrist Al Joumhouri party; Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Ennahda Party and the parliament’s former speaker; former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh; and Abir Moussi, the head of the Free Constitutional Party.