Tunesien: Repression spitzt sich immer weiter zu

Your Excellency,

I write to you to express my grave concern over the prolonged arbitrary detention of human rights defenders Sherifa Riahi, Yadh Bousselmi and Mohamed Joo, from Terre d’Asile Tunisie, the Tunisian branch of French NGO France Terre d’Asile, and Imen Ouardani – former deputy mayor of the eastern city of Sousse, since May 2024. The NGO is registered and operated transparently, providing essential assistance to vulnerable refugees and migrants in cooperation with local and national authorities, including the Sousse municipality. While they should have never been arrested, we call on judicial authorities to promptly put an end to their pretrial detention, which has not been demonstrated to be necessary and is currently not subject to judicial review, until all the charges are dropped.  

Authorities investigated them together with three other Terre d’Asile staff for their work and 16 former municipality officials and employees for their collaboration with the NGO, specifically the opening of a Terre d’Asile facility in a municipal building. The investigation, premised on the idea of a foreign-backed civil society conspiracy to "permanently settle" Sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia, violates their rights to freedom of association and expression, criminalizes legitimate collaboration between civil society and local authorities and violates Tunisia’s international obligations towards refugees and migrants by hampering protection and assistance work. Helping migrants irrespective of their legal status is protected by international law and is not to be equated with human smuggling or trafficking, in line with the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime ratified by Tunisia. 

Authorities have also hindered Sherifa Riahi’s children’s visits. International law and standards outline that pretrial detention must only be used when strictly necessary to prevent suspects from absconding, interfering with the investigation or committing a serious crime, notably for women with children. 

I urge you to ensure that authorities immediately release Sherifa Riahi, Yadh Bousselmi, Mohamed Joo and Imen Ouardani and drop all charges against them. Pending this, authorities must promptly reply to the former’s requests to meet with her children and to respect their best interest. I also call on your government to cease targeting human rights defenders solely for the exercise of their right to defend rights. 

Yours sincerely,