Almost five months after they were detained on suspicion of plotting against state security, a Tunisian judge on Thursday released two well-known political rivals of President Kais Saied, according to their attorney Monia Bouali.
Twenty other political heavyweights, including Chaima Issa and Lazahr Akremi, were jailed in February as part of a crackdown, according to the opposition, that was intended to install Saied’s authoritarian rule after he dissolved parliament and assumed extensive power in 2021.
Issa is a key figure in the Salvation Front, Saied’s primary rival group, which has organised demonstrations against him over the past two years.
After Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, Akremi, a lawyer who later became a minister, has been a vocal opponent of Saied.
In front of the prison, dozens of supporters gathered, waiting for Issa.
After her release from prison, Issa chanted: “Down with the coup. Down with Kais Saied.”
“The injustice against the rest of the prisoners must end… Imprisoning the dissidents will not solve Tunisia’s problems,” Issa told Reuters.
“I paid the price, but we must continue,” she added.
Rights organisations have asked authorities to release the detainees, and the major opposition parties have condemned the detention of its leaders as being politically motivated.
They have been labelled as terrorists and traitors by Saied, who claims that judges who release them will be complicit in their purported crimes.
From September 2021 until March 2023, Saied ruled by decree, a move that the opposition dubbed a coup but that Saied insisted was vital to keep the nation free of anarchy and corruption.
Dozens of families of prisoners demonstrated outside the court in Tunis before to the judge’s decision, holding up images of the detainees and demanding their release.
