Tunisia arrests top opposition leader Nejib Chebbi in widening crackdown

Tunisian police have arrested top opposition figure Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, his family says, as a crackdown on critics of President Kais Saied widens in the North African country, once a beacon of fledgling democracy in the years after the Arab Spring.

Chebbi was arrested at his home on Thursday, days after he was sentenced to 12 years for plotting against the state in a trial denounced by human rights groups as politically motivated and a “sham”.

The 81-year-old’s daughter said in a Facebook post that police had taken him from their home.

His lawyer, Amine Bouker, also confirmed the arrest to the AFP news agency, saying that Tunisia’s “political scene has become frightening”.

Chebbi – the cofounder of the National Salvation Front (FSN), the country’s main opposition coalition – is among several opposition figures, lawyers and rights advocates targeted for arrest and prosecution in recent weeks.

He has been one of the most prominent critics of Saied, who staged a sweeping power grab in 2021, more than a decade after Tunisia overthrew longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the Arab Spring uprisings.

Rights groups have since criticised the president for overseeing a wide-reaching rollback on freedoms.

Last week, dozens of opposition figures were sentenced to as many as 45 years in prison in the so-called “conspiracy case”.

Ayachi Hammami, a rights activist and lawyer, was arrested on Tuesday, following political figure Chaima Issa on Saturday. They were handed five and 20 years in prison, respectively, during the trial.

Days before his arrest, Chebbi denounced the verdict against him as “unjust” and with “no legal basis” in an interview with media Arabic.

Chebbi said he and the other opposition figures who were swept up in the crackdown had done nothing wrong. He also slammed the justice system in the country.

“We don’t have judges,” he said. “We have employees under the command of the political authorities, who are used to take revenge on political opponents.”

‘Unjust convictions’

Amnesty International has denounced the case as a “sham trial” plagued by a series of human rights violations.

“We are deeply alarmed that political activists Chaima Issa and Ahmed Nejib Chebbi and human rights defender Ayachi Hammami now face an imminent and arbitrary risk of arrest after the appeal court confirmed their convictions,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement last week.

“The Tunisian authorities must immediately quash the unjust convictions and sentences against all defendants in the ‘conspiracy case’,” she said, adding that detainees held “solely for exercising their human rights” must be immediately released.

Last week, the European Parliament also voted to urge Tunisia to release “all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including political prisoners and human rights defenders”.

But Saied condemned the resolution as “blatant interference”, saying the European Union could “learn lessons from us on rights and freedoms”.

In a statement after last week’s sentences were handed down, the National Salvation Front – the coalition Chebbi cofounded – accused the Tunisian government of conducting a “campaign of political ‘extermination’ against their political opponents”.

“The haste in issuing the verdicts without interrogations or hearings proves the authorities’ fear of exposing the fabrication and lies, and that the sole purpose of the trial was to criminalize civil political activity and eliminate political leaders known for their struggle and credibility from the arena of opposition political action,” the coalition said.

It denounced the verdict as “a crime against justice and the country’s reputation”.