Kaies Saied's "justice" at a distance from justice
The Comité pour le Respect des Libertés et des Droits de l'Homme en Tunisie (CRLDHT) expresses its deepest indignation at the new judicial staging orchestrated by the regime. This Friday, October 24, at 2pm, in total opacity, the "justice system" set the appeal hearing in the so-called "plot against state security" case for Monday, October 27, 2025, by videoconference, and without the physical presence of the detainees, or prior information to their lawyers.
In the face of this masquerade, the President of the Bar Association, Maître Boubaker Ben Thabet, refused to allow the Tunisian Bar to be a witness of convenience or a "straw puppet".
Thanks to this courageous stance, the court was forced to postpone the hearing until November 17, 2025.
This procedural maneuver is a deliberate strategy of concealment, isolation and control, in violation of article 141 bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure, article 108 of the Constitution, and Tunisia's international commitments. It reflects the government's determination to transform justice into an instrument of submission, at the service of methodical political repression.
Far from seeking the truth, this trial acts as a smokescreen. It aims to divert attention from the regime's resounding failures on all fronts: economic crisis, institutional collapse, ecological disaster in Gabès. While the courts rush to judge opponents, they let Gabès die in silence, unable to rule on the responsibility of a failed industrial model. Justice is swift for dissidents, slow or even absent for victims of pollution or social injustice.
This trial is part of a wider offensive: arbitrary suspension of independent associations such as ATFD, dismissal of magistrates, intimidation of journalists, criminalization of union action. The regime wants a society without voices, without checks and balances, without witnesses.
All the indications are that the October 27 hearing is nothing more than a sham designed to confirm the verdicts handed down in the first instance, i.e. more than 800 years of cumulative imprisonment against the leading figures of the democratic opposition. If the verdicts are confirmed, all those still at large will be arrested: lawyers, teachers, former ministers, activists and academics. Political prison will become the norm.
This trial could become the biggest political crackdown in decades in Tunisia, worsening an already alarming situation of arbitrary detentions.
This trial is not about 40 people. It involves the very idea of Tunisia. Tunisian law enshrines fundamental principles: fair trial, effective defense, physical appearance, freedom of association and expression. Today, these guarantees are being methodically trampled underfoot. But the history of this country has also shown that the law can be a lever of awakening, a matrix of resistance, a language of dignity.
The CRLDHT invites civil society and citizens to mobilize:
- To refuse any appeal hearing held in the absence of the accused - for there can be no justice without defense, and no trial without the accused.
- To denounce the arbitrary suspension of the ATFD and the repression of independent organizations.
- To demand an end to political trials and the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained for their opinions.
- To join together to rebuild a free, independent justice system, one that serves the law, not power.
