Lawyer and former administrative magistrate Ahmed Souab was arrested this Monday morning by a security unit belonging to the Judicial Pole for Combating Terrorism. Ten heavily-armed agents burst into his home, carrying out a muscular search, before transferring him to the Bouchoucha barracks where he was placed in police custody for 48 hours, on the basis of anti-terrorist legislation.
This brutal arrest follows the dissemination of a video extract on social networks, in which Maître Souab delivered a critical analysis of the workings of the criminal chamber specializing in terrorism cases, following the April 18 hearing in the so-called "plot against State security" case. In this passage, the former judge described the situation of the chamber's president as one of direct threat and intimidation, given the justice system's devotion to the executive, which today holds all the levers of appointment, dismissal and pressure on magistrates.
This diagnosis - shared by a large number of observers - is part of a factual and critical reading of the collapse of the separation of powers and the submission of the judiciary to the presidential apparatus. Ahmed Souab's statement, which in no way contains any explicit or implicit threat, has nevertheless been presented in a truncated and alarmist manner, under the effect of a campaign of manipulation and political instrumentalization orchestrated on social networks.
His arrest is part of a systematic strategy to repress critical voices, in particular lawyers involved in defending prisoners of conscience. It raises serious concerns about respect for procedural safeguards: absence of a warrant, disproportionate use of force and misuse of anti-terrorist legislation for political persecution.
We express our total solidarity with Ahmed Souab, a figure of probity and courage in the fight for public freedoms in Tunisia. We denounce in the strongest possible terms this latest attack on freedom of expression, defence and the rule of law.
The CRLDHT calls :
- The immediate and unconditional release of Maître Ahmed Souab;
- Stopping the criminalization of critical legal opinions;
- And to the mobilization of national and international bodies to stop the growing repression of lawyers, journalists, trade unionists, opponents and human rights defenders.
Ahmed Souab's arrest is not a news item: it is the alarming symptom of a power that no longer tolerates any dissent.
