Jailed Tunisian opposition determine Jaouhar Ben Mbarek goes on starvation strike
Ben Mbarek, together with about 40 different critics of the president, is being tried on state conspiracy fees.
A jailed Tunisian opposition activist dealing with state conspiracy fees has launched a starvation strike to protest towards being barred from showing in individual at his personal trial, in keeping with his defence crew.
Jaouhar Ben Mbarek, member of the opposition Nationwide Salvation Entrance and Residents In opposition to the Coup group which oppose President Kais Saied, insists on his proper to be current in court docket to “refute the false fees” towards him, lawyer Samir Dilou stated in an announcement on Fb on behalf of Ben Mbarek’s defence crew.
Dilou stated Ben Mbarek started his starvation strike on March 30.
Detained since February 2023, Ben Mbarek is one in every of dozens of Tunisian politicians, activists, journalists and different critics of the president who’ve been focused in what rights teams describe as a sweeping crackdown on dissent.
About 40 of the defendants, together with Ben Mbarek, had been placed on trial collectively in March, dealing with fees starting from “plotting towards state safety” to “belonging to a terrorist group”.
Human Rights Watch has condemned the mass trial as a “mockery” and urged Tunisia to “speedy launch” all these charged. Bassam Trifi, head of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, denounced the proceedings as one in every of Tunisia’s “greatest judicial scandals”.
Ben Mbarek, a former constitutional regulation professor, is amongst 9 defendants barred from attending courtroom classes, deemed too harmful to be launched from custody.
Nonetheless, he argued that the distant attendance possibility supplied to him prevents him from mounting an efficient defence. As a substitute, he insists on “being current to defend himself and expose the baseless accusations towards him in a correct courtroom setting – not in a staged distant session held in a jail facility,” in keeping with his defence crew.
The Worldwide Fee of Jurists (ICJ), a world rights group comprised of main judges and attorneys, additionally criticised Tunisia’s judiciary for “systematic violations” of detainees’ rights in pre-trial proceedings, which it stated may undermine the entire trial.
Expenses of rolling again the democratic good points of the nation’s revolution of 2011 have dogged Saied since his dramatic energy seize of July 2021, when he shuttered parliament and dismissed its speaker and prime minister, introducing a interval of presidential rule by decree. Saied later dissolved the unbiased Supreme Judicial Council and ushered in a brand new structure that bolstered his rule.
A lot of these at the moment on trial, together with Ben Mbarek, had been distinguished critics of these strikes.
Others on trial embrace former presidential chief of workers Nadia Akacha, former head of intelligence Kamel Guizani and the previous chief of opposition get together Ennahdha, Abdelhamid Jelassi, who, like Ben Mbarek, was arrested in 2023.
Saied, who has known as the defendants “traitors and terrorists”, says he won’t be a dictator, however those that are corrupt have to be held accountable.
