Tunisia rights activist Sihen Bensedrine released from jail News
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Tunisia rights activist Sihen Bensedrine released from jail

Tunisian human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine was released from prison after a ruling from the country’s Court of Appeal on Wednesday, AFP and Jeune Afrique reported. Despite the UN’s demand for her immediate and unconditional release on February 5, she is still under investigation for other charges. 

The 75-year-old activist began a hunger strike in prison on January 14, and was brought to the intensive care unit of the Rabta Ernest Conseil Hospital. The charges against her are mainly based on her work as the president of the Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), which was established in 2013 to expose human rights abuses including torture, arbitrary detention, and other human rights abuses committed since 1955 by former presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and other top officials. 

Her lawyers told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that she was accused of falsifying the commission’s report on alleged corruption in the country’s banking system and was under pretrial detention at Manouba Prison since August 2023. Even though the Court of Auditors did not find any evidence to support these allegations, the investigating judge still charged her with “fraud,” “forgery,” and “abuse of official capacity” that resulted in “causing damage to the state” and issued a travel ban in March 2023.

In response, UN experts remarked,”[The arrest] appears to be aimed at discrediting information contained in the Commission’s report, which could give rise to legal proceedings against alleged perpetrators of corruption under the previous regimes.” HRW highlighted that Tunisia cannot use pretrial detention that can harm rights to freedom of opinion, expression, association, and assembly under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Also, the activist’s arbitrary detention coincided with the detention of 170 people on political grounds ahead of President Kaïes Saïed’s second election in Oct 2024, according to HRW.   

In 2019, IVD released its final report which documented cases of grave human rights abuses and recommended the prosecution of 23 former ministers, security officials, and businessmen at Specialized Criminal Chambers (SCC) in Tunisia. The Tunisian authorities did not implement any recommendations. Furthermore, President Kaïes Saïed issued Decree 2022-11 in February 2022, repealing Organic Law No. 2016-34 which ensures the separation of power and independence of the judiciary. The decree significantly enabled the President to arbitrarily dismiss judges and prosecutors.

Bensedrine has worked for nearly 40 years to expose human rights violations in Tunisia. She was detained for two weeks back in 1987, and again for nearly two months in 2001. She was exiled in 2010 until the 2011 uprisings and the establishment of the IVD. Tunisia was the only country in the Middle East and North Africa to establish a national truth commission and showed significant progress towards upholding the rule of law until President Saïed seized power in 2021.

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