Tunisia Bar Association Announces Strike After Lawyer's Arrest
The president of the Tunisian Bar Association has announced a strike in the courts of the Tunis region next week, in protest against "the assault" by the police on the headquarters of the Association to arrest a lawyer who is critical of the government.
© Reuters
Mundo Tunísia
Hatem Al Maziou called, at a press conference on Saturday, for the release of the "abducted colleague" and described the events as a "dangerous precedent" and a "blatant attack" on the profession, recalling that "whatever the reasons and causes, there are procedures that must be respected".
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Hours earlier, about 30 plainclothes and hooded agents forced their way into the building to arrest lawyer Sonia Dahmani, who had taken refuge at the Order's headquarters since Friday, after an examining magistrate ordered her detention.
"The police invaded [the building], located in front of the Tunis court, assaulted lawyers and abducted Sonia Dahmani to an unknown location," said Dalila Msaddek, from Dahmani's defense team, on the social network Facebook.
Islam Hamza, another of the lawyer's defenders, confirmed to the France-Presse news agency "the detention of Sonia Dahmani by police officers".
The French news channel France 24, whose journalists were on site to cover the movement to support the lawyer, broadcast live at the time of the arrest.
"The police ended up violently tearing the camera off the tripod, ending the live broadcast of the scene, and arrested Hamdi Tlili. The cameraman was released about 10 minutes later and the France 24 correspondent is fine," said the channel, which broadcast images of the scene on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
France 24 "strongly condemns this attack on freedom of the press and this brutal and intimidating intervention by the security forces to prevent journalists from carrying out their activity, when covering a demonstration by lawyers for respect for justice and in defense of freedom of expression," it added, in a statement.
The Tunisian press reported that Dahmani is being investigated for spreading "false information with the aim of harming public safety" and "inciting hate speech", under decree-law 54.
This decree, enacted in September 2022 by the President of Tunisia, Kais Said, punishes with a prison sentence of up to five years anyone who uses information and communication networks to "write, produce, disseminate" false information to "violate the rights of others or harm public safety".
On Tuesday, during a television program, Sonia Dahmani ironically questioned "what extraordinary country" she was talking about, after another commentator claimed that migrants from several sub-Saharan African countries were seeking to settle in Tunisia.
On Thursday, Dahmani received a summons to appear before an investigating judge on Friday, Msaddek said.
Sonia Dahmani explained to the press that she refused to appear before the court "without knowing the reasons for the summons" and denounced a campaign of persecution on social networks.
Due to the absence, the investigating judge in charge of the case issued an arrest warrant.
In the last year and a half, more than 60 people, including journalists, lawyers and opponents of Said, have been prosecuted under article 54, according to the Tunisian Journalists' Union.
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