French National Detained in Tunisia on Breach of State Security Charges

Security forces in the streets of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis (AFP)
Security forces in the streets of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis (AFP)
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French National Detained in Tunisia on Breach of State Security Charges

Security forces in the streets of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis (AFP)
Security forces in the streets of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis (AFP)

 

French PhD student Victor Dupont was detained in Tunisia on breach of state security charges 12 days ago, and French authorities are trying to negotiate his release, the director of his research lab, Vincent Geisser, said.
Dupont, 27, was arrested just before midday on Oct. 19 at his home in a suburb of Tunis along with three friends visiting from France, according to one of the friends, Edouard Matalon, a Paris-based librarian.
Matalon was released the same day after questioning, according to Reuters.
“This is an attack on academic freedom,” said Geisser, director of the French Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds at Aix-Marseille University.
The Tunisian authorities were not immediately available for comment. The French ministry of foreign affairs did not reply to a request for comment.
But several Tunisian lawyers linked Dupont’s arrest to the PhD he started in 2022, and which looks at the socio-economic and life trajectories of those who took part in social movements of the 2011 revolution that toppled President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

 



US Asked Lebanon to Declare Unilateral Ceasefire with Israel

US special envoy Amos Hochstein meets with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister in Beirut on October 21, 2024. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
US special envoy Amos Hochstein meets with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister in Beirut on October 21, 2024. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
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US Asked Lebanon to Declare Unilateral Ceasefire with Israel

US special envoy Amos Hochstein meets with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister in Beirut on October 21, 2024. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
US special envoy Amos Hochstein meets with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister in Beirut on October 21, 2024. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)

A US envoy this week asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire with Israel as part of an effort to help negotiations to reach a resolution for the more than year-long conflict, a senior Lebanese political source and a senior diplomat said.
The sources said the effort was communicated by US Lebanon Envoy Amos Hochstein to Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, reported Reuters.
But such an announcement was seen as a non-starter in Lebanon, the sources said, where it would likely be equated with a surrender.