Police arrest prominent Tunisian opposition leader Ayachi Hammami to enforce a five-year jail term in a state security conspiracy case.
TUNIS: Police arrested prominent Tunisian opposition figure Ayachi Hammami at his home on Tuesday to enforce a five-year prison term.
An appeals court convicted Hammami last week on charges of conspiracy against state security.
Dozens of other opposition leaders, business figures, and lawyers received jail terms of up to 45 years in the same case.
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The charges allege a conspiracy to overthrow President Kais Saied, which critics call a sign of his increasingly authoritarian rule.
“If you are seeing this video, I have been arrested,” Hammami said in a video posted by his family.
“I have spent years fighting for democracy, freedom, rights. I will turn my cell into a new front of struggle,” he added, stating he planned to go on hunger strike.
Police arrested another opposition figure, Chaima Issa, last week to enforce a 20-year sentence from the same case.
The opposition maintains the charges are fabricated to crush Saied’s critics through the judiciary.
Authorities say the defendants, including former officials and an ex-intelligence chief, tried to destabilise the country.
Saied says he does not interfere with the judiciary and that no one is above the law.
When the case was launched in 2023, the president called the politicians involved “traitors and terrorists”.
Police are also widely expected to arrest Najib Chebbi, head of the main opposition coalition, who received a 12-year sentence.
The case prosecuted 40 people, with 20 who fled abroad sentenced in absentia.
Rights groups called the verdicts an escalation of Saied’s crackdown on dissent since 2021.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called for the immediate annulment of the sentences. – Reuters
