On Wednesday evening, the Tunisian judiciary released the human rights activist Siham bin Sidrin after her arrest since last August and her hunger strike last month.
“I can only be happy, no one wants to be in this hole,” said Ben Sidrin while leaving prison in the suburb of Manouba in the capital, Tunisia.
“I used to breathe the breeze of freedom at this time and see a small square of the blue sky (when she leaves her cell), then I prayed to God to see the whole sky, and my wish was fulfilled.”
Bin Sidrine, 74, was headed by the constitutional “Truth and Dignity Commission” of transitional justice, which conducted interviews with thousands of victims of the era of President Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987), and Zain Al-Abidin bin Ali (1987-2011).
It is prosecuting, especially for “falsifying” part of the final report of the authority that was established after the 2011 revolution.
A spokesman for the Court of Appeal in Tunisia, Habib Tarikhani, told the French Press Agency that the court ordered her release, but it is still pursuing this case and prohibited from traveling.
Before her release, her husband, Omar Al -Mustiri, told the agency itself that she “suffered, but she is determined to defend her rights.”
The former journalist, who was one of the most prominent opponents of Ben Ali, entered into a hunger strike on January 14, the anniversary of the fall of the previous regime, in protest against its arrest. She was taken to hospital 10 days after the strike due to health problems.
In view of the deterioration of its health, many NGOs, including Amnesty International, the International Federation of Human Rights, and the International Organization for Anti -Torture, demanded that they release them, noting “worrying signs of concern” and “putting them on respiratory assistance systems.”
Siham bin Sidrin is free
Freedom for all prisoners and prisoners of opinion in #Tunisia pic.twitter.com/J8bh6aqgKKFida Hammami (@fidaahammami) February 19, 2025
Continuous harassment
The Human Rights Protection Observatory, which is the fruit of a partnership between the International Federation of Human Rights and the World Organization for Torture, has condemned “arbitrary detention” and expressed regret “the ongoing judicial harassment of” Siham Bin Sidrin “in the context of 6 different cases, all related to its work on Head of Truth and Dignity. “
The Truth and Dignity Commission was established in 2014, in the aftermath of the revolution that ended the presidency of Ben Ali in 2011, and its mission was to limit the violations committed by the state representatives between 1955 and 2013, a period that also covered the presidency of Bourguiba, as well as the turmoil that followed the revolution.
In its final report, published in 2020, the Truth and Dignity Commission, which conducted interviews with nearly 50 thousand supposed victims, and referred at least 173 files on the judiciary, called for “the dismantling of the system of corruption, repression and dictatorship” that still exists within state institutions.
Local and international non -governmental organizations and opponents have been condemning the decline in rights and freedoms in Tunisia since President Qais Sa`id’s monopoly in July 2021.
On Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned Volcker Turk “the persecution of opponents” in Tunisia, calling in a statement of the authorities to put an end to the wave of arrests, which especially included human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers.
Dozens of political officials, including the head of the Renaissance movement, Rashid Ghannouchi and the opposition, Abeer Moussa, as well as businessmen and journalists, have been behind bars since February 2023.
Most of them were charged with “conspiracy against state security”, a charge that involves severe penalties.
(Tagstotranslate) News (T) Hurris (T) Tunisia (T) Arabic