HRW denounced the pre-trial detainment of distinguished activist and former president of the Reality and Dignity Fee, Sihem Bensedrine, in a press launch on Monday calling for her quick launch.
Bensedrine was detained in Manouba jail by order of an investigative choose on August 1, 2024, for her work as president of the Fee. Her request for launch has been rejected.
The press launch cites Deputy Center East and North Africa director Bassam Khawaja who commented on the matter stating that, “[t]his is a transparent case of retaliation, and authorities ought to instantly launch Bensedrine, drop the fees, and cease focusing on human rights defenders.” Based on Khawaja, “[a]fter undermining Tunisia’s transitional justice course of for years, President Saied’s authorities strikes the ultimate blow by detaining Sihem Bensedrine”.
Bensedrine’s entanglement with the judicial system started in Could 2020 when a former fee member filed a grievance that she had falsified the Fee’s final report on alleged corruption throughout the Franco-Tunisian Financial institution. Practically three years later, an official investigation was launched in February 2023 and adopted up by a journey ban in March 2024. Bensedrine has been formally charged with “utilizing her place to achieve unfair benefit for herself or a 3rd occasion, fraud, and forgery”.
The Reality and Dignity Fee was created in 2013 as Tunisia’s official truth-seeking physique to investigate historic abuses and suggest measures for redress, taking vigor from the overthrow of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
In the middle of her activism, Bensedrine confronted imprisonment below totally different governments for denouncing human rights abuses. HRW describes the activist’s most up-to-date arrest as a “blow to transitional justice in Tunisia” and a violation of the ICCPR, which acknowledges pre-trial detention solely after a correct individualized dedication. Amnesty Worldwide has likewise described the fees levied in opposition to Bensedrine as a “misuse of the prison justice system”.
HRW alleges that Bensedrine’s detainment is yet one more collateral instance of President Saied’s technique to weaken judicial independence and meet his political ends. With President Saied vying for a second time period within the upcoming presidential election on October 6, Bensedrine’s detainment marks a regarding pattern of repression highlighted by activists in current weeks.
Source / Picture: jurist.org
