Souve is a fierce critic of President Kais Said and has been arrested for comments about justice acting under obsessive force.
A Tunisian judge ordered the detention of Ahmed Souabu, a prominent lawyer who is a fierce critic of President Kais Said, two days after being arrested for comments on the judicial system.
Suabu’s arrest sparked widespread outrage among political parties and civil society groups, and the move was a dangerous escalation of repression of objections and further entrenchment of the country’s authoritarian regime.
Activists protested this week and took him to the streets, calling for his release, chanting slogans against Saeed, demanding harassment, silence and ending critics’ imprisonment.
Souab was on the legal defense team at Mass Trial last week, with dozens of defendants, including Saied’s voice critics, being handed over prison conditions of up to 66 years.
The lawyer was arrested Monday in a police attack at his home in Tunis, but before his client’s sentence, “The knife is on the head of a judge who issued the sentence, not the head of a detainee.”
The counterterrorism court interpreted the comment as a threat to the judge, but Suabu’s lawyers said it was a reference to the great political pressure on the judge.
Souabu was in custody on “terrorist attacks” in the comments, a court spokesman said.
Souab is a retired administrative judge, lawyer and critic of Saied’s voice, repeatedly saying that the judiciary has lost its independence.
His lawyers boycotted the hearing Wednesday after informing them that the judge had accepted representatives of dozens of lawyers who existed to protect him.
Saeb Souab, the son of a detained lawyer, told journalists, “Based on the Philosopher, my father is now suspected of terrorism.”
Speaking to President Said, his former law professor Saib Souabu said, “This is not the law you taught me.”
He called for his father’s release and said he was suffering from heart problems.
“A hasty trial”
Since Saied launched Power Grab in the summer of 2021, rights advocates and opposition figures have denounced the rollback of freedom in a North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring began.
Critics have denounced the recent large trial as politically motivated and unfounded. The defendant was faced with charges such as “a national security conspiracy” and “a member of a terrorist group,” according to his lawyers.
Among those targets is Ennada, the figure of what was once the largest party, said former prime minister Hichem Mechchi, former legal judicial pastor Nurededin Bili, and Ferjani, a member of the party’s political leadership.
However, the bullet also hit many non-Annada figures, including Abir Musi, a fierce critic of Ennahada, and Abdelazek Crimi, project director for the Tunisian Refugee Council.
Some of them were arrested in February 2023, and then Said was named by them as “terrorists.”
“The Tunisian courts didn’t give defendants as much as they looked to a fair trial,” said Bassam Kawaja, deputy Middle East and North African director of Human Rights Watch.
Tunisia “has made it clear that after a rushed trial without justification, people taking risks in prison for years, who were involved in political opposition and civic activities,” he added.
Several jurists in Tunisia were also accused of Tuesday’s “significant violation of all foundations of a fair trial.”
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