The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday denounced house arrests imposed in Tunisia as being in reality “secret detentions under cover of a state of emergency”.
“The Tunisian authorities conceal under certain house arrests secret detentions under the pretext of a state of emergency”, HRW said in a press release, citing the cases of the former Minister of Justice and number two of the Ennahdha party, Noureddine. Bhiri, and Fethi Baldi, a leading executive of this party, a pet peeves of President Kais Saied.
For HRW, “the excesses in the application” of such an “extrajudicial measure” in the name of exceptional legislation promulgated under former President Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987) and regularly extended, “have multiplied” since the coup by Mr. Saied who assumed full powers on July 25 and “witness a dangerous escalation”.
The NGO denounced at least two other house arrests with arrest and incommunicado, justified by the Ministry of the Interior, as for MM. Baldi and Bhiri, on suspicion of a “serious threat to public safety”. These two subpoenas were lifted a few days later.
“The exceptional measures granted by the emergency decree are used in an abusive manner and without judicial control” and “raise the specter of secret detentions”, denounced Salsabil Chellali, head of HRW for Tunisia.
MM. Bhiri and Baldi were arrested and forcibly taken on January 31 by plainclothes officers to an unknown location. Mr. Bhiri was hospitalized the next day in Bizerte (north) after the deterioration of his state of health while the exact place of detention of Mr. Baldi remains secret.
Mr. Bhiri, on hunger strike and who initially refused to take his medication, is fed and treated via infusions, according to HRW.
“More than a month since their detention, neither Baldi nor Bhiri have received written notification of their house arrest”, lambasted HRW, adding that “no arrest warrant has been issued and the authorities did not disclose any formal charges against them”.
Only their families are authorized to visit them under police supervision, a situation already denounced by the Instance for the Prevention of Torture (INPT), an independent detention monitoring body.
