Tunisian police arrested veteran opposition politician Ayachi Hammami at his home on Tuesday to carry out a five year prison sentence for conspiracy against state security, his family told Reuters. The detention followed a sweeping appeals court ruling last week that imposed lengthy prison terms on dozens of government critics.
The arrest has intensified growing concern among rights groups and political movements who say President Kais Saied is using the judiciary to silence opponents. Saied, who took extraordinary powers in 2021 and later dissolved parliament, has rejected those accusations and insists the courts act independently.
Last week’s appeals court verdict delivered sentences of up to forty five years to political figures, business leaders, lawyers, and former security officials. Hammami, a former human rights minister, was among those convicted in the case, which targeted a group that authorities accused of plotting to destabilise the state and remove Saied from office.
Hammami appeared in a video recorded shortly before his arrest and posted on his Facebook page by his family. “If you are seeing this video, I have been arrested,” he said. He added that he had “spent years fighting for democracy, freedom, rights” and vowed to “turn my cell into a new front of struggle”. His family said he plans to begin a hunger strike.
Police also detained opposition activist Chaima Issa last week in Tunis to enforce a twenty year sentence handed down in the same case.
Opposition groups said the accusations were politically motivated and aimed at crushing dissent. They argue that Saied’s government has increasingly relied on criminal charges to remove rivals following his consolidation of power in 2021.
Authorities defended the prosecutions and said the defendants, who include former intelligence chief Kamel Guizani, attempted to undermine national stability. Saied has repeatedly denied any interference in judicial matters, saying “no one is above the law” and insisting that officials must face consequences regardless of their status.
When the case was initiated in 2023, Saied described those charged as “traitors and terrorists” and warned that judges who cleared them would be acting as accomplices.
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Najib Chebbi, leader of the National Salvation Front and the most prominent figure in the opposition coalition, is widely expected to face arrest after receiving a twelve year prison sentence in the same trial. Chebbi has accused Saied of dismantling democratic institutions and ruling through unilateral decrees.
A total of forty people were prosecuted in the case, making it one of the largest political trials in Tunisia since the 2011 uprising. Twenty of those defendants have fled abroad and were sentenced in absentia.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the verdict marked a new escalation in the crackdown on dissent. Both groups called for the immediate annulment of the sentences and urged Tunisian authorities to restore safeguards for political freedoms.
