In a serious escalation, judge and President of the Tunisian Association of Young Magistrates Mourad Messaoudi was kidnapped and violently assaulted today outside his home in Ezzahra.
According to his family, plainclothes security guards were waiting to ambush him, and as soon as he arrived at around 1pm, accompanied by his 6-year-old daughter, they intervened brutally to arrest him. They tried to cover his head with a cloth to conceal his face, but family members intervened to stop them. The officers then physically assaulted her niece and hit her mother-in-law.
He was taken by force to an unknown destination, without his family or lawyer being informed of his place of detention or the reasons for his arrest. Initial information suggests that this operation may be linked to the appeal judgement sentencing him to 8 months in prison for "buying sponsorships".
Mourad Messaoudi, known for his firm stance in favor of judicial independence and his rejection of the arbitrary dismissals that affected 57 judges in 2022, has long been the target of a systematic campaign of harassment and prosecution. Despite an administrative ruling ordering her reinstatement, the authorities have refused to implement the decision. Yet this ruling legally confers on him the status of magistrate, and therefore the benefit of judicial immunity.
In July 2024, he had announced his candidacy for the presidential election under the slogan "Tunisia : a country of freedom, love, art and beauty ", but the de facto authorities prevented his participation by convicting him in a fabricated case known as "buying sponsorships", punishing him with 8 months in prison and a lifetime ban from running in any election.
We hold the Tunisian authorities fully responsible for his physical and psychological integrity, and demand that they immediately reveal the location of his detention, the reason for his arrest, and release him unconditionally. We also call on national and international human rights organizations, as well as the UN bodies responsible for the independence of the judiciary and the protection of human rights defenders, to take urgent action in the face of this grave violation.
