Tunisian judge orders detention of prominent lawyer Ahmed Souab | News

Souab is a fierce critic of President Kais Saied and was arrested for comments about the judiciary acting under duress.

A Tunisian judge has ordered the detention of prominent lawyer Ahmed Souab, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, lawyers said, two days after his arrest for comments about the judiciary.

Souab’s arrest sparked widespread anger among political parties and civil society groups, which said the move was a dangerous escalation of a crackdown on dissent and marked a further entrenchment of the country’s authoritarian regime.

Activists took to the streets in protest this week, calling for his release, chanting slogans against Saied and demanding an end to the harassment, silencing and imprisonment of critics.

Souab was on the legal defence team in the mass trial last week, in which dozens of defendants, including vocal critics of Saied, were handed jail terms of up to 66 years.

The lawyer was arrested on Monday in a police raid on his home in the capital Tunis, after saying before his clients’ sentencing that “knives are not on the necks of detainees, but on the neck of the judge issuing the ruling,” criticising political pressure judges were allegedly under.

An anti-terrorism court interpreted the comment as a threat to the judges, but Souab’s lawyers said it was a reference to the huge political pressure on judges.

Souab had been detained on “terrorism-related charges” over the comment, a spokesperson for the court said.

Souab is a retired administrative judge and lawyer, and a vocal critic of Saied, who has repeatedly said the judiciary had lost its independence.

His lawyers boycotted Wednesday’s hearing after the judge informed them that he had accepted the representation of only four lawyers out of the dozens present to defend him.

Saeb Souab, the detained lawyer’s son, told journalists that “based on a metaphor, my father is now suspected of terrorism”.

Addressing President Saied, his former law professor Saeb Souab said, “This is not the law you taught us.”

He called for the release of his father, who he said suffers from heart problems.

‘Hasty trial’

Since Saied launched a power grab in the summer of 2021, rights advocates and opposition figures have decried a rollback of freedoms in the North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring began.

Critics have denounced the recent mass trial as politically motivated and baseless. The defendants faced charges including “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, according to their lawyers.

Among those targeted are figures from what was once the biggest party, Ennahdha, such as the leader and former Speaker of Parliament Rached Ghannouchi, former Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, former Minister of Justice Noureddine Bhiri, and Said Ferjani, a member of the party’s political executive.

But the crackdown has also hit many non-Ennahdha figures, including Abir Moussi, a fierce critic of Ennahdha, and Abderrazek Krimi, the project director of the Tunisian Refugee Council.

Some of them had been arrested in February 2023, after which Saied labelled them “terrorists”.

“The Tunisian court did not give defendants so much as a semblance of a fair trial,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Tunisia was “making it clear that anyone participating in political opposition or civic activism risks years in prison after a hasty trial without due process”, he added.

Several Tunisian legal scholars also denounced in a petition on Tuesday “flagrant violations of all the bases of a fair trial”.