Nairobi: In an effort to secure their loved ones' immediate release, the families of Tunisian opposition figures who were detained during a government crackdown on Wednesday filed a case with Africa's human rights court.
More than 20 political opponents and other personalities have been detained by the government of the North African nation since early February, drawing criticism from the international community and human rights organisations.
One of the most prominent opponents of President Kais Saied, who dissolved the assembly in July 2021 as part of a power grab to enable him to rule by decree, is Rached Ghannouchi, the former speaker of parliament and one of those detained.
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Ghannouchi, 81, the leader of the Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha in Tunisia, was detained in April and given a one-year prison sentence on May 15 for terrorism-related offences.
His daughter Yusra Ghannouchi claimed that Saied was trying to "eradicate the opposition" by fabricating the accusations against her father that were made against him.
The people detained during the crackdown, according to Saied, were "terrorists" engaged in a "conspiracy against state security."
In the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings in the region more than ten years ago, critics have labelled his actions a "coup" and a return to autocratic rule.
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As part of an international campaign for their release, Yusra Ghannouchi and other family members of the detainees brought the case before the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights in Arusha, Tanzania.
On the eve of travelling to Arusha, she told AFP in Nairobi, "We hope this will result in their release and in justice for them." The 45-year-old British mother of three Ghannouchi declared, "They are not silent, and we will not be silent."
She stated that the relatives were also requesting that the US, EU, and Britain impose specific sanctions against Saied and a number of his ministers who are "all implicated in human rights violations".
They requested that the Arusha court rule that Tunisia's actions violated the African Human Rights Charter and issue a provisional order for the detainees' release, according to their British attorney Rodney Dixon.
He added that the case in Arusha was on behalf of six of those arrested. "They are trying to fight their cases in Tunisia, but the obstacle is that every door has been shut," he said. They must go to an African court to seek justice because the local system does not provide it.
He claimed that prisoners lacked regular access to solicitors and had trouble receiving adequate medical care.
A claim of torture will also be brought up at the Africa court in the case of one of the detainees who has received extremely poor treatment. Ghannouchi stated that because her father has hypertension and is "no longer a young man," she was concerned for his health.
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Following the overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Ghannouchi, who had been imprisoned twice in the 1980s for secret political activities, went into exile for 20 years. Only six African nations, including Tunisia, have formally ratified the court.Dixon claimed he anticipated the case being heard by the court in June