Rights organizations create committee to advocate for freedoms in Tunisia News
Lassaad Aouichaoui, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Rights organizations create committee to advocate for freedoms in Tunisia

Several human rights organizations announced on Friday the creation of an international support committee for freedoms in Tunisia in response to increasing authoritarianism under President Kais Saied. They are calling for free, transparent elections, the release of unjustly detained individuals, and an end to repressive measures against Tunisian society.

Yosra Frawes, head of International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) Maghreb and Middle East office, stated:

It is our duty to raise awareness of the situation in Tunisia. By creating this committee, we want to initiate a surge of international solidarity in support of Tunisian civil society. The latter courageously fights for justice and freedom. We refuse to stifle the dream of democracy in the Arab world under the eyes, and sometimes with the help, of traditional democracies. The latter are exchanging their values for agreements to manage migratory flows, which is an unacceptable use of their influence in Tunisia.

Tunisia’s upcoming presidential election has been mired in controversies. Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) recently rejected the Administrative Court’s ruling reinstating three disqualified candidates for the upcoming October 6 presidential election. ISIE confirmed President Kais Saied, Zouhair Magzhaoui, and Ayachi Zammel as the final candidates despite the court’s decision to reinstate Abdellatif Mekki and Mondher Znaidi. The ISIE has also barred 14 candidates from running in upcoming elections.

The Tunisian Workers’ Union and the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law criticized the ISIE decision to reject a court ruling that reinstated three presidential candidates.

The FIDH, in collaboration with the Euromed Rights Network and the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Tunisia, will be undertaking this initiative. The committee will be composed of 20 members from 13 countries, including human rights defenders, lawyers, and activists.

The international support committee aims to counteract the authoritarian policies of President Kais Saied, who came to power through a coup in 2021.

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