The imprisoned leader of the Tunisian opposition party Ennahdha, Rached Ghannouchi, began a hunger strike on Monday February 19 to protest against the detention of opponents in Tunisia and to express his support for them, his Islamo-conservative movement announced.
In detention since April 17, 2023, Rached Ghannouchi, 82,
“decided to start a hunger strike (...) in solidarity with the (other) prisoners on hunger strike and to support all opponents ( incarcerated) in the various prisons”
of the country, his party said in a press release.
Several imprisoned political figures, including Jawhar Ben Mbarek and Issam Chebbi, leaders of the National Salvation Front (FSN), the main opposition coalition, have been on hunger strike for 8 days to demand to be released.
Denouncing
“unfounded arbitrary prosecutions”
and a desire by those in power to exclude opponents from the political scene, these personalities had already led a hunger strike for several days in September.
The majority of imprisoned opponents are being prosecuted for
“conspiracy against state security”
.
“Apologia for terrorism”
At the beginning of February, Rached Ghannouchi, the bête noire of President Kaïs Saïed, was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal
“foreign”
financing of his training.
On May 15, 2023, he had already received a year in prison for
“apology of terrorism”
in the context of another case, a sentence toughened to 15 months on appeal last October.
This verdict was pronounced following a complaint from a police union denouncing comments he had made in early 2022 during the funeral of an Ennahdha official whom he had assured that he “did
not fear nor the powerful nor tyrants”
, this word designating the police, according to the prosecution file.
Rached Ghannouchi, whose party dominated governments over the past decade after the 2011 revolt that toppled the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, is the most famous opponent imprisoned since President Saied's takeover. full powers in July 2021. Since February 2023, more than twenty opponents, businessmen and other personalities, described as
“terrorists”
by Kaïs Saïed, have been imprisoned on charges of
“ conspiracy against internal security
.