A Night of Verdicts, Decades of Prison

Thirty-five defendants. Sentences ranging from ten years to life imprisonment. The court showed no leniency toward the central figures of this case. Mustapha Khedher, whose name had circulated in judicial circles for years, received the most crushing punishment of all: life imprisonment, to which ninety-six additional years were attached. A figure that defies comprehension, a symbol of the extreme gravity of the criminal charges brought against him.

Next came Ridha Barouni, Taher Boubahri, Kamel Aïfi and seven other defendants, also sentenced to life imprisonment combined with seventy-six additional years. Fathi Beldi received life plus fifty years. Abdelaziz Daghsni, life plus thirty-seven years. Kamel Bedoui, life plus thirty-two years. Samir Hannachi, life plus thirty years. Rached Ghannouchi himself sits within this same category — a life sentence compounded by thirty years of additional imprisonment.

The fixed-term sentences were scarcely more lenient. Kaïs Bacar was condemned to forty-eight years in prison. Belhassen Naccache to forty-six. Ali Larayedh, former prime minister and Ennahda’s historic second-in-command, to forty-two years. Ali Ferchichi to thirty-four. Other defendants received sentences of ten, twelve or eighteen years — punishments that, in any other context, would be considered severe, yet here appear almost modest against the backdrop of the full picture. Without exception, every convicted person was also placed under administrative surveillance for five additional years following the completion of their sentence.

The court found the defendants guilty of several terrorism-related offenses: forming and joining a terrorist organization, and placing skills and expertise at the disposal of such an organization — charges that Tunisia’s counter-terrorism legislation punishes without ambiguity.

2013: Where Everything Begins

To understand this verdict, one must travel back thirteen years. In 2013, Tunisia was living through a period of intense political turbulence. On February 6, Chokri Belaïd, a charismatic figure of the Tunisian left, was shot dead outside his home at dawn. Six months later, on July 25, Mohamed Brahmi, a parliamentarian and nationalist activist, fell in turn to an assassin’s bullets. Two murders, two traumas, and a single question that remained without a definitive answer for years: who ordered these killings?

It was this question that the legal defense committee for the families of Belaïd and Brahmi brought before the courts in 2022, pointing the finger at what they call Ennahda’s “secret apparatus” — a clandestine structure that allegedly operated outside all legality, infiltrating state services, gathering intelligence, and, according to the prosecution, planning violent actions. Rached Ghannouchi is presented not as a bystander, but as the direct supervisor of this apparatus.

Ennahda, for its part, has always issued a categorical denial. The party rejects the very existence of such an apparatus and has condemned the proceedings from the outset as a political instrumentalization of justice, designed to eliminate the opposition.

A Party, a Revolution, a Fall

The history of Ennahda is inseparable from that of contemporary Tunisia. Born in clandestinity under the repression of Bourguiba, then Ben Ali, the movement survived decades of persecution before triumphing at the ballot box in October 2011, just months after the regime’s collapse. It was a historic moment — the first Islamist party to win free elections in the Arab world. Ghannouchi returned from a long London exile carrying the reputation of a liberal theologian, an advocate for an Islam compatible with democracy.

But the exercise of power quickly exposed the tensions running beneath the country’s surface. The 2013 assassinations, the economic crises, and the accusations of institutional infiltration gradually eroded the confidence of large sections of Tunisian society in the movement. When Kaïs Saïed suspended parliament in July 2021 and consolidated his grip over every lever of the state, Ennahda found itself squarely in the crosshairs of systematic judicial repression.

Since his arrest in April 2023, Ghannouchi has faced trial after trial, conviction after conviction. His party’s offices were shut down. His successors imprisoned. The movement that was once the country’s dominant political force is today a decapitated structure, its senior leadership either behind bars or in exile.

The Question That Remains

On this evening of June 2, 2026, Tunisia has rendered its legal judgment. But the questions this verdict raises cannot be locked inside a courtroom. Between those who see in these convictions the legitimate culmination of a long search for truth on behalf of the families of Belaïd and Brahmi, and those who read in them the judicial execution of a political movement by a power without counterweight, the divide is deep — and it will remain so long after the courthouse doors have been shut.

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A name, a lineage, and an approach based on consensus

Nasser Al-Senussi holds no official position in the current power structures, which remain divided between the UN-recognised government in Tripoli and the parallel authorities in the east. For his advocates, this extra-institutional status is not a handicap but an asset: he would not carry the burden of the armed compromises of recent years. Supporters highlight his network of relationships patiently woven across Libya’s three historical regions, without tribal or partisan exclusivity.

According to several diplomatic sources who requested anonymity, exploratory meetings have recently taken place between foreign envoys and associates of Mr Al-Senussi, although he himself has made no public statement of candidacy. On economic matters, some Libyan observers note that he has been involved in administrative and local development issues, particularly in basic services – electricity shortages, salary blocks, crumbling infrastructure – suggesting he is not a novice facing daily emergencies.

Advocates of this track insist on one point: his trajectory is not that of a militia leader nor an imported technocrat, but of a backstage actor who has consistently called for inclusive round tables. Still, at this stage, his name does not appear on any official UN document, nor on the Presidential Council’s roadmap.

The Libyan labyrinth: between popular expectation and elite deadlock

To understand the media emergence of this figure, one must revisit the mechanics of Libya’s impasse. Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, the country has seen two parliaments, three civil wars, and a succession of interim governments. The elections scheduled for December 2021 were suspended sine die, derailed by disagreements over the constitutional basis and the legitimacy of candidates. Today, even the Central Bank remains functionally divided, and oil revenues – the sole national rent – are subject to cyclical blockages.

In this vacuum, civil society and part of the Libyan street express growing fatigue with the shifting alliances of former belligerents. Opinion polls conducted by local institutes, albeit partial, show recurrent demand for a figure neither from the militias nor a direct heir of the old regime. It is in this gap that Al-Senussi’s name acquires meaning, even though his surname ties him to the deposed monarchy – an ambiguity his supporters reframe as a guarantee of national continuity.

The historical backdrop is sensitive: his grandfather, Safi Al-Din Al-Senussi, was a figure of resistance to Italian colonisation and then of the construction of the nascent Libyan state. As an heir to a family that gave two kings to the country, Nasser Al-Senussi walks a fine line: historical capital, but without an asserted monarchist claim. In a country where memories remain vivid, this dual anchoring can both reassure and unsettle, depending on the region.

A test for Libya’s transitional model

The circulation of Nasser Al-Senussi’s name is not yet an exit scenario from the crisis. However, it signals a stubborn reality: none of the governments formed since 2014 has succeeded in organising free and peaceful presidential elections. Foreign sponsors – Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, the United States – support different actors without being able to impose a lasting compromise. In this chess game, could a consensus figure without an armed apparatus break the logic of force? The hypothesis divides analysts: optimists see it as the only alternative to chaos; sceptics recall that in Benghazi as in Misrata, the real levers of power remain in the hands of local commanders.

Regardless, the public appearance of this name in diplomatic and media conversations is an indicator not to be ignored. With the symbolic milestone of 2026 approaching – fifteen years after the revolution – Libyans are not asking for a saviour, but for a credible window to choose their leaders.

The question that will remain unanswered as long as Mr Al-Senussi has not officially broken his silence is this: in a country where every consensus so far has been devoured by regional rivalries, can a backstage figure with historical legitimacy truly impose an electoral roadmap without in turn being caught up by the war of alliances?

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On Thursday, May 21, 2026, the criminal chamber specializing in financial corruption cases handed down the sentence against Tabib, a former bar association president who once led the National Anti-Corruption Authority (INLUCC). He was found guilty of forging documents, possessing and using forged papers, and destroying records. A judicial source confirmed the ruling to the Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) news agency.

Forged documents at the heart of the case

The case dates back to 2020, when Tunisia was mired in a deep political crisis. Tabib, then at the helm of INLUCC, submitted a file to the Assembly of the Representatives of the People alleging conflicts of interest against the then-head of government, Elyes Fakhfakh.

While the move appeared to be a routine institutional procedure, it triggered a cascade of legal consequences. The court ruled that several documents transmitted to Parliament had been falsified, thereby compromising the integrity of an official act from an independent oversight body.

Weeks after submitting the file, in August 2020, Fakhfakh dismissed Tabib from his post — a decision that sparked sharp controversy and fueled debates about the genuine autonomy of regulatory bodies vis-à-vis the executive branch.

A man with a unique institutional career

Tabib is no ordinary defendant. A respected lawyer and former president of the national bar association, he was appointed to lead INLUCC in the years following Tunisia’s 2011 revolution. His profile — at the intersection of law and civil society — made him a reference figure in the fight against corruption.

His conviction by the very court tasked with prosecuting financial corruption crimes presents a paradox that will not be lost on the Tunisian public.

He appeared at trial while at liberty, though an arrest warrant had been issued by an investigating judge from the economic and financial judicial division, following an inquiry based on a report from the Court of Auditors.

Anti-corruption fight: progress and contradictions

Since 2011, Tunisia has built an institutional and legislative arsenal meant to make transparency a national priority. INLUCC, created in the revolution’s aftermath, was designed to be its flagship institution. But the gap between ambition and on-the-ground realities has only widened.

Successive reports from Transparency International, as well as Tunisian civil society groups, have consistently pointed to persistent corrupt practices at various levels of the state and the economy. The fragility of oversight bodies, their exposure to political pressure, and a lack of resources have all been cited as barriers to an effective anti-corruption drive.

In this context, Tabib’s trial unfolds during a particularly intense judicial period. Since the political turning point of July 25, 2021, and the subsequent reconfiguration of power around the presidency, several cases involving former senior officials have accelerated noticeably — feeding an ongoing debate over the conditions for judicial independence in Tunisia.

Thursday’s ruling is not final. As a first-instance decision, it remains subject to appeal, leaving the door open for further legal developments. Yet beyond the procedure, a fundamental question now looms large: How does a democracy under construction ensure that its oversight institutions remain immune to the very abuses they are meant to combat?

Source: Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP), May 21, 2026

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Demands That Transcend Professional Grievances

On the surface, the Tunisian Order of Lawyers lists six grievances: judicial sector reform, improved working conditions, the restoration of the Supreme Council of Magistrates, modernization of court infrastructure, the sustainability of the lawyers’ pension fund, and an end to prosecutions targeting certain bar members. In reality, these demands point toward a more serious diagnosis: that of a judicial apparatus in disrepair, directed from the top by the state executive.

Boubaker Blathaout, the bar’s dean, articulated the underlying stakes during the first gathering: “We defend our right to freedom, we guarantee fair trials, and we demand that justice not be used as an instrument of political conflict.” This seemingly basic assertion carries outsized symbolic weight in the current Tunisian context. It signals that the legal profession has grown weary of functioning as a willing extra in a system where judicial robes too often conform to the wishes of those in power.

The lawyers’ placards conveyed the same message with cutting directness: “No to the dismissal of the bar’s demands. No to the denial of justice.” Other signs read: “No restriction of the right to defense,” and “Guarantees of fair trial must exist.” These are not the slogans of a professional association seeking mere salary increases. They are declarations about the nature of state power itself.

The Crux: A Supreme Council in Limbo Since 2022

The fixation on the Supreme Council of Magistrates is not coincidental. After President Kais Saied’s seizure of power in February 2022—which brought about the dissolution of this institution—lawyers expected a swift restoration of this constitutional safeguard. Yet four years later, the CSM remains quasi-nonexistent as a functioning body. This absence is not a matter of bureaucratic sluggishness; it reflects a deliberate intent to keep judges dependent on executive will.

Without this council, magistrates lack any meaningful protection against political pressure. Appointments, transfers, and dismissals now flow from administrative decisions made without institutional counterweight. Lawyers view this situation as symptomatic of a deeper pathology: the progressive instrumentalization of judicial power. Several attorneys have themselves faced criminal prosecutions for alleged financial corruption—charges they regard as retaliatory measures.

The question haunting the bar is uncomfortable but essential: In a state where the executive controls judicial outcomes, can there be justice? The international legal community has answered this question with mounting alarm. The International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International, and MEDEL (the Mechanism for Cooperation among the Maghreb and West) have all issued reports documenting what they describe as a “grave erosion” of judicial independence in Tunisia.

Government Silence as a Form of Response

When confronted with this mobilization, the government has chosen indifference. Leïla Jaffel, Minister of Justice since October 2021, has consistently refused substantive dialogue with the bar association. The ministry went so far as to announce, even before the strike began, that courts would operate normally—a gesture of pure defiance. No offer of compromise. No opening to negotiation. Only refusal to listen.

This posture reveals something consequential: the executive views the judicial branch as its exclusive prerogative. By ignoring the bar’s demands, it sends a message to judges who might still harbor doubts about their subordination: independence is not a right but a revocable privilege.

A Judicial System Corroded by Institutional Breakdown

The lawyers’ strike does not emerge from nowhere. It responds to manifest deterioration across the judicial sector. International reports converge on a shared diagnosis: Tunisia’s judicial independence is undergoing systematic erosion.

The magistrates themselves have sounded alarms. The Tunisian Association of Judges has noted that the 2025-2026 judicial year marks the third consecutive year without institutional guarantees of independence. Rule-of-law violations accumulate: opposition politicians tried via videoconference on charges of “conspiracy against state security,” prolonged detention without procedural safeguards, a judicial system patently segmented along political lines.

Parallel to these political machinations, material conditions have deteriorated. Court clerks are understaffed. Buildings decay. Case delays stretch indefinitely. For lawyers—already accustomed to navigating a system grown hostile to robust defense—this combination breeds exhaustion. After years of unanswered requests for dialogue, patience has curdled into resistance.

The Contours of a Political Impasse

This strike exposes a fundamental contradiction at the heart of post-2022 Tunisia. The country adopted a constitution in 2014 whose Article 102 explicitly enshrines judicial independence. But once a president decides to exercise power differently, that independence becomes an inconvenient obstacle to be circumscribed or eliminated.

Lawyers striking today are not fighting for salary increases or shorter hours. They are fighting for the professional capacity itself—which is to say, fighting for the fundamental right of every person to competent legal defense. When the state renders the practice of defense impossible, it dismantles the foundations of rule of law.

The government, for its part, appears to be betting on attrition. It calculates that lawyers, facing lost income from the strike, will eventually accept the status quo. But this calculation overlooks a crucial social reality: no large-scale professional mobilization remains confined to its original grievances for long. It becomes symbolic, a crystallization of broader collective frustration. In a Tunisia already fatigued by political instability, the lawyers’ movement may well become a warning sign for growing swaths of the population.

The Critical Weeks Ahead

The timeline is compressed. Regional strikes will be staged through June 8th, followed by the national gathering on June 18th. If the bar achieves the level of mobilization it anticipates, courts could genuinely grind to a halt. No democracy has ever endured for long without a functioning judicial apparatus, however imperfect.

Two scenarios remain possible. In the first, the government makes partial concessions: it opens dialogue, accepts some reforms, restores the Supreme Council. This would require the executive to acknowledge limits to its power. In the second scenario, the strike persists, tensions escalate, and collateral damage mounts—hesitant investors, eroded public confidence, international legitimacy questioned.

Between these paths, the government has not yet chosen. Perhaps it has not yet grasped that the choice is urgent.

A Democracy at a Crossroads

The mobilization of Tunisia’s lawyers raises a broader question: Can a regime long prosper by evacuating its institutions of meaning? The answer Tunisia provides in the coming weeks will reveal much about its capacity to construct a durable rule of law—or its capitulation before that task

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At the heart of the dispute is the persistent inertia of the Ministry of Justice regarding trade union demands and repeated warnings about the deteriorating working conditions in Tunisian courts. A national press conference is also planned to inform the public of the situation in the country’s courthouses. Dean Boubaker Belthabet is signing the official statements on behalf of the council.

A precise strike schedule, a lasting anger

The decisions made on May 13, 2026, are not improvised. They are part of a gradual, carefully planned escalation by the National Bar Council, following what the profession describes as a deafening dialogue with the Ministry of Justice.

The action plan has two components. First, a series of mandatory regional strikes, spread over several weeks according to a precise geographical schedule:

Tuesday, May 19, 2026: Courts in Tunis, Nabeul, and Zaghouan are targeted, with a rally at the Tunis court of first instance.

Thursday, May 21, 2026: The bar associations of Bizerte, Béja, Jendouba, Le Kef, and Siliana will strike, with a rally at the Bizerte court of first instance.

Monday, May 25, 2026: Lawyers from Sfax, Gafsa, Tozeur, and Sidi Bouzid join the movement, gathering at the Sfax 1 court of first instance.

Monday, June 1, 2026: Médenine, Gabès, Kébili, and Tataouine follow, with a rally at the Médenine court of first instance.

Monday, June 8, 2026: The bar associations of Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia, Kairouan, and Kasserine close ranks around the Sousse court of first instance.

Second, a mandatory general national strike is scheduled for Thursday, June 18, 2026, with a central rally at the Tunis court of justice — the most symbolically charged date of the entire action program.

Starting May 18, all lawyers, without exception, are called upon to wear the red armband during their hearings in all courts of the Republic. This gesture — visible, sober, indisputable — is a form of silent protest intended for magistrates, litigants, and the public. The Tunis regional branch, under the signature of its president, Soufiane Ben El Haj Mohamed, released an official statement on May 14, 2026, to coordinate the practical details of the May 19 strike in the capital’s courts.

Specific demands, absent responses

To understand why the profession has reached this point, one must return to the roots of the conflict. The Bar Council recalls having repeatedly and officially requested a dialogue with the Ministry of Justice on a set of structural demands, spanning several fronts.

The first concerns the judicial infrastructure itself. The Bar Association denounces the advanced deterioration of court buildings: insufficient courtrooms, outdated equipment, and working conditions that no longer allow for a public justice service to be provided in dignified conditions. These situations directly affect the quality of procedures and, ultimately, the rights of litigants.

The second front concerns the institutional functioning of the judicial system. The Council points to the persistent deadlock in establishing the Supreme Judicial Council — a constitutional body whose absence affects the governance of the judiciary — as well as the use of what the profession describes as arbitrary circulars to organize the transfers of magistrates, without prior consultation or compensation for those affected.

The third issue concerns the social protection of lawyers themselves. Documented dysfunctions of the National Retirement and Social Welfare Fund for lawyers are a major concern for the entire profession, especially for generations approaching retirement.

Faced with these demands, the Ministry of Justice has reportedly not formulated any substantial response since the extraordinary general assembly of May 1, 2026 — a meeting described by the Bar Council as having brought together hundreds of lawyers from across the country, in a display of professional solidarity rare in its scale.

Historical reminder: a profession that has always resisted

The activism of the Tunisian Bar Association is not new. It is part of a long and well-documented tradition dating back to the first decades of the independent state.

As early as the 1960s and 1970s, under President Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian lawyers constituted one of the few professional bodies capable of organized resistance against the authoritarian excesses of the Destour regime. The National Bar Association, founded in 1956 following independence, quickly established itself as a counter-power space, protected by the nature of the legal profession and the formal independence guarantees attached to the practice of law.

In the 1980s, as Tunisia experienced a severe economic crisis and social tensions rose, lawyers played an active role in defending prosecuted trade unionists and political opponents, helping to maintain a minimal space for legal protection in a judicial system under pressure.

Under Ben Ali, the profession had an ambivalent relationship with the regime. Officially controlled, it nevertheless sheltered dissident voices, defended human rights activists, and produced figures who found themselves at the forefront of the post-2011 transition — including Chawki Tabib, a former bar president and former head of the National Anti-Corruption Authority, recently imprisoned in circumstances his supporters describe as politically motivated.

After the 2011 revolution, the Bar Association experienced an unprecedented period of ferment. Lawyers actively participated in drafting the founding texts of the new Republic, sat on national dialogue bodies, and contributed to the legislative framework of the democratic transition. The Bar also played a mediating role during the political crises of 2013, alongside the other components of the National Dialogue Quartet, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.

Since 2021, the profession finds itself in a new position: no longer a partner in a transition, but a sentinel watching for institutional regression with growing concern. The imprisonment of Chawki Tabib, the pressure on magistrates, the deterioration of working conditions in the courts — all signals the Bar interprets as an attack on the very foundations of the rule of law.

A tipping point ahead

The action program adopted on May 13 runs until June 18, 2026. Until then, every hearing in every court in the country will be marked by the lawyers’ red armband of protest. If the regional strikes do not produce a response from the ministry, the national strike on June 18 promises to be a breaking point.

The Bar Council has warned it will not stop there: the determination to “pursue all forms of struggle” is written in black and white in the statement signed by Dean Belthabet. What the government chooses to do — or not do — in the coming weeks will say much about the real state of dialogue between the executive branch and intermediary bodies in Tunisia.

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A Sentence Confirmed, A Message Delivered

The appeal ruling left nothing to chance. Every element of the original judgment — handed down on January 22, 2025, by the Tunis Court of First Instance — was confirmed in full. That means not only the prison term, but the entire financial architecture of the punishment: heavy monetary fines, the confiscation of the journalists’ personal assets, and the seizure of their shareholdings in companies they were associated with, all transferred to the Tunisian public treasury.

That last element deserves particular attention. By stripping Bessaies and Zghidi of their economic footing, the ruling does not merely punish them for the present — it forecloses the possibility of any meaningful professional recovery once they eventually leave prison. Their tools, their resources, their financial independence: all gone, by judicial order.

At the time the appeal ruling was delivered, both men had already spent nearly a year in pretrial and post-conviction detention since their arrest in May 2024. Under Tunisian law, that time counts against their total sentence — but it also means that, barring a successful cassation appeal, they face well over two more years of incarceration.

Financial Charges, Journalistic Targets

The nature of the charges against Bessaies and Zghidi has never stopped raising questions. Money laundering. Tax offenses. These are the instruments of commercial fraud prosecutions, the legal vocabulary of financial crime — not, ordinarily, the charges brought against journalists for their editorial work.

That distinction is not merely semantic. By framing the case in financial rather than press-related terms, prosecutors sidestepped the specific legal protections that Tunisian law formally extends to journalists. Decree-Law No. 115 of 2011, one of the foundational texts of post-revolutionary Tunisian press freedom, offers guarantees that simply do not apply when the charges are fiscal rather than journalistic. The outcome — two journalists imprisoned, silenced, and professionally ruined — is identical to what a press-related conviction would have produced. The legal pathway chosen to get there, however, was carefully different.

This is precisely what press freedom organizations have argued since the two men were first detained. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and other international watchdogs have consistently listed Bessaies and Zghidi among the world’s imprisoned journalists, pushing back against any reading of their case as a straightforward financial matter with no bearing on media freedom.

Two Journalists, One Vanishing Space

Borhane Bessaies and Mourad Zghidi are not marginal figures. Both men built their reputations in the media environment that emerged after the 2011 revolution — a period when Tunisia, alone in the Arab world, seemed to be constructing something durable: a free press, a pluralist public sphere, an independent judiciary. Their work circulated in the critical, digitally-driven spaces that had no equivalent under Ben Ali.

That environment still exists, technically. But it has been contracting, steadily and visibly, since President Kaïs Saïed’s consolidation of power following his July 2021 power grab. The tools being used against journalists have multiplied and diversified. Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code — originally designed to regulate electronic communications infrastructure — has become a recurring instrument for prosecuting journalists and ordinary citizens who voice criticism online. As recently as late April 2026, journalist Zied Heni was placed in police custody under that provision after commenting on a judicial decision on social media.

Meanwhile, investigative outlet Inkyfada — one of the few Tunisian media organizations with a genuine track record of in-depth reporting — has been reported as facing threats of administrative dissolution. The High Independent Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA), the regulatory body created after 2011 to safeguard broadcast pluralism, has seen its authority progressively undermined.

Against this backdrop, the Bessaies and Zghidi case stands apart in one critical respect: with sentences of three and a half years now confirmed on appeal, they are the most heavily punished journalists currently detained in Tunisia. Their case has become a reference point — the outer edge of what the current system is prepared to do to those who occupy the media space in ways it finds inconvenient.

What Comes Next

A cassation appeal remains theoretically available to both men. Unlike an ordinary appeal, cassation does not revisit the facts of the case; it examines whether the law was correctly applied and whether procedural guarantees were respected throughout the trial. Their legal team had not publicly announced, at the time of writing, whether they intend to pursue that route.

What is certain is that their case will not disappear from view. International press freedom organizations will continue to monitor it. Diplomatic missions in Tunis that have expressed concern over Tunisia’s democratic trajectory will note the verdict. And inside Tunisia itself, journalists who have watched this case unfold over more than a year will draw their own conclusions about what it means to practice independent journalism in the country today.

Tunisia was once the singular success story of the Arab Spring — the one place where a popular uprising seemed to have produced lasting democratic change. That narrative has been under strain for several years now. The appeal court ruling against Bessaies and Zghidi will not, by itself, define what Tunisia ultimately becomes. But in the long record of how this period is eventually judged, it will be one of the entries that historians find hardest to set aside.

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Heni was ‌detained last month after writing an article criticising the judiciary, a move ⁠the journalists’ ⁠union said was part of a broader crackdown on free ​speech.

Heni’s lawyer Nafaa Laaribi said that the ruling “is harsh, and it reinforces restrictions on free speech”.

Heni said on Wednesday in a letter from prison published by his family ​that he would not appeal any ruling.

“I’m facing an illegitimate trial in ⁠which my ⁠rights are being violated. ⁠I ​do not recognize any outcome resulting from it”, he added.

Rights groups warn of ​growing attempts to stifle ⁠remaining independent voices since President Kais Saied dissolved the elected parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.

In 2022, President Kais Saied also dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges, a move the opposition said ⁠undermined judicial independence and turned it into a body receiving direct instructions.

Saied ⁠denies the accusations, saying he fought corruption in the judiciary and that the courts are now independent.

Free speech initially flourished following the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and led to the “Arab Spring”.

But critics say Saied’s accumulation of power in 2021 and decrees he has issued since then have dismantled democratic safeguards and enabled the authorities to pursue many journalists.

The leaders of Tunisia’s main ⁠opposition parties have been jailed in the last three years, along with dozens of politicians, journalists, activists and businessmen, on charges of conspiring against state security, money-laundering and corruption.

Saied says he will not be ​a dictator and that freedoms are guaranteed in Tunisia.

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The Law as an Instrument of Silencing

There is a cruel irony in the method. What characterizes the repression denounced by the UN is not, primarily, heavy-handed arrests or arbitrary closures. It is the law itself — or rather, its distorted use — that serves as the lever. Audits invoked at carefully chosen moments, administrative irregularities brandished as pretexts, decrees drafted in deliberately vague terms: a set of legal tools that make it possible to paralyze, without striking a visible blow, decades of civic and human rights work.

The suspension, on Tuesday, of Avocats Sans Frontières for a period of thirty days by a Tunisian court is the most recent illustration. The organization, whose teams work with the most vulnerable populations, found itself overnight unable to carry out any of its missions. A few days earlier, it was the Tunisian League for Human Rights that had suffered the same fate — an institution founded in 1977, a pioneer in the Arab world, brought to a standstill by a court ruling.

For Volker Türk, the pattern is now too consistent to be coincidental. “We are observing a growing trend in which Tunisian authorities are resorting to the use of judicially imposed sanctions to curb the exercise of the right to freedom of association, with the barest consideration for the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality required for such limitations to be permissible,” he stated.

Journalists Behind Bars for Doing Their Job

While civil society organizations navigate administrative courts, the independent press faces prison cells. On April 24, journalist Zied El Heni was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention. The charge: a penal provision criminalizing the use of telecommunication networks to “harm others” — a formulation so broad it can apply to virtually any form of critical reporting or commentary.

His case is part of a pattern that is far from incidental. The previous year, twenty-eight journalists — among them Mourad Zghidi — had been arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to various prison terms for acts directly related to the exercise of their profession. The primary legislative tool deployed against them is a 2022 decree-law officially dedicated to combating cybercrime, but whose broadly worded provisions allow authorities to pursue journalists for articles, interviews or public statements.

It is precisely this text that the UN is urging Tunisian lawmakers to revise. An amendment process is reportedly underway, but its outcome remains uncertain. Türk was unambiguous in his demand: “I urge the Tunisian authorities to release immediately and unconditionally all those detained or imprisoned for having expressed their views, protected under international human rights law, and to lift all arbitrary restrictions on the freedoms of expression and association.”

The Long Shadow of the 2021 Power Shift

To understand the trajectory that led to this situation, one must return to the summer of 2021. On July 25 of that year, President Kaïs Saïed suspended parliament, assumed sweeping executive powers and launched a constitutional overhaul that resulted, in 2022, in the adoption of a new foundational text concentrating authority overwhelmingly in the hands of the executive. This institutional power grab, described by its supporters as a “correction of the course,” was seen by opponents — and by much of the international community — as a clear break with the gains of the 2011 revolution.

For it is precisely that legacy which is now at stake. Tunisia had been, in the aftermath of the uprising that toppled Ben Ali, the only country of the Arab Spring to have successfully transitioned toward a pluralist system. A progressive constitution, free elections, a thriving civil society: achievements that earned the country, in 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the National Dialogue Quartet.

Today, the UN also raises the alarm over the absence of a functioning constitutional court — an institution essential to ensuring that laws and decisions respect citizens’ fundamental rights. Without this safeguard, legal recourse remains limited and abuses difficult to contain. “Tunisia’s democratic and human rights gains after 2011 must be maintained, not progressively dismantled,” warned Volker Türk, in terms that sound less like a recommendation than a stark warning.

Behind the diplomatic language and official communiqués, a fundamental question now looms with growing urgency: how far is the international community willing to go to ensure that its warnings amount to something more than statements without consequence? And within Tunisia itself, what forces — political, legal, social — still hold enough weight to influence a trajectory that the UN, without equivocation, judges to be deeply troubling?

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Visitors came from France, China, Ivory Coast and Italy, including France’s ambassador to Tunisia, a symbolic gesture after two French citizens were among those killed in the 2023 attack. A national guardsman shot and killed five people at the El-Ghriba synagogue soon after the festival that year, spreading fear among the local Jewish population and international pilgrims.

Participants said about 500 people have attended this year’s pilgrimage, held on the Mediterranean island of Djerba from April 30 to May 6 to celebrate the Lag B’Omer Jewish holiday. Jews have lived in Tunisia since Roman times, and the pilgrimage remains central to the country’s small but long-standing Jewish community.

Here is a paragraph on the history of Tunisian Jews:

The Jewish Community of Tunisia: A History Spanning Three Millennia

The Jewish presence in Tunisia is one of the oldest and most continuous in the world, dating back over two thousand years to the era of the Phoenician and Roman empires, long before the Arab conquest of North Africa in the seventh century. According to historical records, Jewish communities settled along the Tunisian coastline following the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE, finding refuge in the fertile lands of what was then known as the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis. Over the centuries, Tunisian Jews developed a rich and distinctive cultural identity, blending Hebrew religious traditions with Berber, Arab, and later Ottoman influences, producing a unique dialect, cuisine, and artistic heritage that set them apart from Jewish communities elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. At their demographic peak in the mid-twentieth century, Tunisian Jews numbered close to one hundred thousand, concentrated primarily in Tunis, Sfax, Sousse, and the island of Djerba — home to the ancient El-Ghriba Synagogue, one of the oldest houses of worship in Africa. The waves of emigration that followed Tunisian independence in 1956, the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, and the broader regional tensions of the post-colonial era dramatically reduced this population, driving most Tunisian Jews toward Israel, France, and other Western countries. Today, fewer than two thousand Jews remain in Tunisia, yet their cultural and historical imprint on the country endures, visible in architecture, gastronomy, language, and the living memory of communities on both shores of the Mediterranean.

Jewish pilgrimage 2026

Inside the synagogue, the atmosphere was calm and devotional, while also buzzing with conversations and social exchanges. Worshippers lit candles, read sacred texts and wrote wishes on eggs later placed in a sacred cave within the complex, a tradition believed to bring blessings.

Among them was Redj Cahen, a Tunisian-Italian pilgrim who returned after missing last year’s gathering. “We are back, and we are proud to be Tunisian Jews,” he said. “It is a feeling you cannot explain. Only those who come here understand.”

The gathering draws both local worshippers and members of the diaspora returning to their ancestral roots and has long been seen as a symbol of coexistence, attracting Muslim visitors alongside Jewish pilgrims.

A visible but contained security presence surrounded the synagogue, while heavier measures were deployed at access points to the island, where police checkpoints and barricades controlled entry. Vehicles were searched and identification documents carefully inspected. Within Djerba, security was especially concentrated in Hara Seghira and Hara Kebira, the island’s main Jewish quarters.

Despite security worries, the traditional “Minara” procession took place for the first time since the 2023 attack, signaling a cautious easing of restrictions.

The Minara, a pyramid-shaped tower of gold and silver, is placed at the center of the synagogue. Women drape it with colorful scarves in a gesture associated with good fortune, fertility and marriage. A symbolic auction of paintings and Jewish religious items follows as part of a traditional fundraiser for the synagogue’s maintenance, after which the scarf-laden Minara is placed on a cart and paraded outside to the sounds of the traditional darbuka drum, singing and throwing of candy. It is later brought back into the synagogue, concluding one of the event’s pillar traditions.

The pilgrimage, one of the oldest in Africa, has historically drawn thousands from around the world. Attendance dropped sharply after the 2023 shooting outside the synagogue that killed two pilgrims and three security officers. The synagogue was also targeted by a 2002 truck bombing by al-Qaida that killed about 20 people.

“This year’s Ghriba pilgrimage marks a gradual return,” said former Tourism Minister René Trabelsi. “We are returning little by little.”

Trabelsi said Tunisian authorities had pushed to maintain the pilgrimage despite the challenges. The event plays an important role in supporting the local economy.

Khedir Hnaia, who has worked at the synagogue for more than three decades, welcomed the return of longtime visitors. “We would like to reflect a good image to the world, to bring back the glory of Ghriba and make it even better than how it used to be,” he said.

“We need to stand up for our country, we love Tunisia very much and in the same way our country stood up for us we will always stand up for it,” said Haim Haddad, a member of the pilgrimage organizing committee from Zarzis.

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An uncompromising stance on a fractured world

Delegates at the PPDS central council April 2026 session did not shy away from grand geopolitical pronouncements. Their final text starts with a global diagnosis. The party argues that the recurring crises of capitalism are pushing imperialist powers, led by the United States, to multiply conflicts in a desperate attempt to maintain control. They point to the decline of the dollar and the rise of alternative currencies as signs that a new world order is struggling to be born.

The communiqué then moves through a litany of solidarities. It condemns what it calls the “American-Zionist aggression against Iran,” affirming Tehran’s right to defend its sovereignty. It expresses support for Venezuela’s President Maduro, denouncing his “kidnapping,” and stands with Cuba against the US blockade and threats of invasion. The party also accuses France of mobilizing terrorist groups to destabilize the Sahel region, while voicing solidarity with what it sees as revolutionary movements crushed under “fascist” regimes in Turkey and India. On the Arab front, the PPDS is unequivocal: full support for Palestinian resistance in Gaza, rejection of normalization with Israel, and solidarity with Lebanese resistance fighters facing attempts at disarmament.

Tunisia: a long list of grievances against the Saied government

It is on the national level, however, that the PPDS central council April 2026 offers its most detailed and pointed critique. The party insists Tunisia’s current crisis is not circumstantial. They say it is the direct result of economic policies that perpetuate colonial-era dependencies. The communiqué attacks the government’s gradual dismantling of subsidy systems, specifically citing the withdrawal of subsidized products and the promotion of alternatives like “bran bread” – measures they say attack the right to food and burden the poorest.

The council also holds the president and parliament responsible for what it views as attacks on national sovereignty in renewable energy. The ratification of new concessions in Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, Gabès, and Kairouan is seen as a step towards privatizing the national electricity and gas company, STEG. On freedoms, the PPDS demands the repeal of Decree-Law 54 and the establishment of the long-awaited Constitutional Court. It rejects restrictions on political activity and expresses solidarity with the powerful UGTT trade union federation, which it says is being targeted by “arbitrary measures.” The party also demands the immediate release of Ghassen Henchiri, a member of its political bureau, imprisoned on charges it calls “unfounded.” Finally, the council condemns rising racist speech in Tunisia, holding the “Saïed regime” fully responsible.

A fragmented left searching for a common path

The PPDS central council April 2026 session takes place in a Tunisian political landscape that has been profoundly reshaped since July 25, 2021, when President Saïed seized near-total control. While Saïed successfully sidelined the once-dominant Ennahdha movement and the old guard of Nidaa Tounes, the radical left has not prospered. The PPDS remains an extra-parliamentary force. Its real influence is felt more in grassroots union committees and pro-Palestinian solidarity campaigns than in electoral politics. The collapse of the Popular Front, a previous leftist coalition, has left a void that the PPDS has struggled to fill.

Nouri Beltoumi, the PPDS’s secretary-general, has repeatedly called for unity. But attempts to build a “national progressive front” keep stalling amid ideological differences and personal rivalries. The economic backdrop is grim. Inflation has hovered above 10% for much of the past year. Official unemployment stands near 17%, and shortages of basic goods have sparked localized protests. Migration, another issue the PPDS raised, has become deeply toxic after President Saïed’s past remarks about “hordes” of sub-Saharan migrants and recent street clashes in Sfax. In this context, the PPDS’s message – blending anti-imperialism, social justice, and defense of liberties – resonates with a hard core of activists but has yet to break through to a wider, exhausted population.

A radical voice, an uncertain echo

The Conseil central du PPDS avril 2026 has spoken. Its members leave Tunis with a detailed roadmap for opposition, yet the path ahead remains unclear. The party’s call for a “national progressive front” free from Islamists, Destourians, and the Salvation Front is ambitious. But can this radical diagnosis, powerful in its internal consistency, overcome the deep fragmentation of the Tunisian left and translate into a popular movement? The PPDS is betting that the rising cost of living and the steady squeeze on public freedoms will eventually provide an opening. For now, though, the party remains more of a critical observer than a credible alternative, its voice clear but its echo in the streets of Tunis still uncertain.

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