Three Tunisian opposition leaders on hunger strike in prison

Ennahdha party leaders stop eating to protest his imprisonment on terrorism and money laundering charges.

Three leaders of Tunisia’s opposition Ennahdha party are on hunger strike to protest their arrest and stripping of their fundamental rights in what is seen as part of a government crackdown on opponents of President Kais Saied.

Sahbi Atig, 64, has been on a hunger strike for 32 days. His health has severely deteriorated, his wife, Zeineb Mraihi, said Monday after visiting him in prison.

Atig, a member of the Ennahdha Shura Council, was arrested on 6 May on his way to attend a conference in Turkey. He has been in custody ever since on “suspicion of money laundering.”

“He has lost 17kg (37lbs), his heart rate is weak and he can barely speak,” Mraihi said, adding that Atig spent several days in intensive care in a hospital a week ago.

‘Dangerous politics’

Ennahdha issued a statement on Monday after another of its leaders, Ahmed Mechergui, 54, a former deputy and chief of staff of the party leader, began a hunger strike on Sunday to protest against his imprisonment since April 18.

“Forcing detainees to go on hunger strikes as a last resort to defend themselves is a dangerous policy and a great risk to the lives of Tunisians whose only fault is their disagreement with the ruling authorities,” the statement read.

He also made reference to the arrest of activist and Ennahdha Shura member Youssef Nouri, who was arrested around the same time as Mechergui. Nouri has been on a hunger strike since April 24 to “protest the lack of the most basic and fundamental rights of prisoners,” his lawyer Latifa Habbechi said on the first day of her strike.

On Saturday, Ennahdha published a petition by 52 Tunisian law professors calling on the government to release “all political detainees and prisoners of conscience who were imprisoned without justification or fair trial.”

In March, the European Parliament, in a non-binding resolution, denounced the “authoritarian drift” of Saied, who said that the detainees are “terrorists” involved in a “conspiracy against state security.”

The Ennahdha party was the largest in parliament before Saied dissolved the chamber in July 2021 as part of a power grab that allowed him to rule by decree in the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings more than a decade ago.

A Tunisian court last month sentenced Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi to a year in prison on terrorism-related charges, which the party condemned as an “unfair political verdict.”

Ghannouchi and Atig are among more than 20 political opponents and prominent figures of Saied arrested since February, including former ministers and businessmen.