Tunisia president, Saied, hunts down opposition leaders, arrests prominent opponent, Hammami, as 20 flee abroad

Police have arrested prominent Tunisian opposition leader, Ayachi Hammami, to enforce a five-year prison sentence on charges of conspiracy against state security, his family told Reuters on Tuesday.

Hammami, a former minister of human rights, was among dozens of political figures handed lengthy jail terms by an Appeals Court last week, with some sentences reaching up to 45 years.

Reuters reports that the convictions targeted opposition politicians, business leaders and lawyers accused of plotting to overthrow President Kais Saied.

Critics say the sweeping sentences mark a further escalation of Saied’s authoritarian turn since he seized extraordinary powers in 2021.

In a video posted on his Facebook page shortly before his arrest, Hammami said: “If you are seeing this video, I have been arrested. I have spent years fighting for democracy, freedom, rights. I will turn my cell into a new front of struggle,” adding that he intended to go on hunger strike.

His arrest follows that of opposition figure Chaima Issa, who was detained last week during a protest in Tunis to enforce a 20-year prison term linked to the same case.

Opposition groups say the charges are fabricated and part of a coordinated effort to suppress political dissent through the judiciary.

Authorities, however, insist the defendants — who include former senior officials and ex-intelligence chief Kamel Guizani — attempted to destabilize the state and unseat the president.

Saied has denied interfering in judicial matters, arguing that “no one is above the law.” When the case was launched in 2023, he described the accused politicians as “traitors and terrorists,” warning that any judge who cleared them would be acting as an accomplice.

Police are also expected to arrest Najib Chebbi, leader of the opposition National Salvation Front, who received a 12-year sentence in what has become one of Tunisia’s largest political prosecutions in recent history.

Twenty of the 40 defendants fled abroad and were sentenced in absentia.

Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemned the verdicts as part of an ongoing crackdown on dissent and called for the immediate annulment of the sentences.

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