The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) condemned on Friday the recent intimidation and harassment of lawyers in Tunisia after authorities launched a massive arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists critical of the government.
“Reported raids in the past week on the Tunisia Bar Association undermine the rule of law and violate international standards on the protection of the independence and function of lawyers,” OHCHR spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
“Such actions constitute forms of intimidation and harassment.”
She said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urges the authorities to respect and safeguard freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Tunisia is a party.
Over the past few days, Tunisian authorities have detained civil society figures including anti-racism activist Saadia Mosbah, a number of lawyers, as well as political commentators on radio and television stations.
On Thursday, hundreds of Tunisian lawyers led a strike in the capital Tunis to protest the decline of freedoms in a country that saw the onset of the Arab Spring.
The protest came after security officers stormed the Tunisian Bar Association's headquarters during a live television broadcast, arresting a media commentator and lawyer, Sonia Dahmani.
The officers also arrested her colleague, Mahdi Zagrouba, who was tortured during interrogation—an allegation denied by Tunisian officials.
The arrests have sparked condemnations and an international backlash, which Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has slammed as foreign “interference.”
Saied said the detention of lawyers is “legal,” adding that the events of the last few days had nothing to do with the legal profession of lawyers, but “with those who dared to denigrate and even slander their country in the media and who violently assaulted a security officer.”
In her statement, Shamdasani had also quoted Türk as saying that the rule of law in Tunisia must be upheld, and those arbitrarily detained, including for defending the rights of migrants and for combating racial discrimination, released.
“The human rights of all migrants must be protected, and xenophobic hate speech must stop,” she said.
The OHCHR spokesperson said, “We are very concerned by the increased targeting in Tunisia of migrants, mostly from south of the Sahara, and individuals and organizations working to assist them.”
At the same time, she noted, “we are witnessing a rise in the use of dehumanizing and racist rhetoric against Black migrants and Black Tunisians.”
Shortly following Shamdasani’s statements, sources in Tunisia said judicial authorities have arrested Saadia Mosbah, an anti-discrimination activist, as part of a money laundering investigation.
The arrest of Mosbah, the president of Tunisian anti-racism association Mnemty ("My dream"), came just hours after Saied criticized Tunisian humanitarian organizations that defend sub-Saharan migrants at a National Security Council meeting on Monday.
“The associations that cry today and shed tears in the media receive huge amounts of money from abroad,” Saied said.
