Tunisian lawyers call for strike over colleague’s arrest for sarcastic TV quip

Sonia Dahmani, a prominent critic of the government, was arrested Saturday night after making sarcastic remarks about Tunisia on a local television programme last week and charged with distributing false information and disrupting public order.

She was the latest dissident to be charged under the country’s controversial Decree 54, an anti-fake news law that the government has used to pursue critics of President Kais Saied.

The Tunisian Lawyers Council on Sunday called for a nationwide general strike to be held by all lawyers.

Dahmani’s advocates had gathered at the bar association Saturday to protest a warrant for her arrest when police stormed the building.

FRANCE 24's French language reporter was live on air from Tunis when hooded police officials arrived at the bar association to arrest Dahmani.

Masked police forced FRANCE 24 to stop broadcasting after tearing "the camera from its tripod" and briefly detaining the cameraman.

FRANCE 24 has condemned the "brutal intervention by security forces that prevented journalists from practising their profession as they were covering a lawyers' protest for justice and in support of freedom of expression".

'What extraordinary country are we talking about?'

The incident was the latest in a series of arrests and investigations targeting activists, journalists and civil society groups critical of Saied and the government.

The move reinforces opponents' fears of an increasingly authoritarian government ahead of presidential elections expected later this year.

Dahmani was arrested after she said, on a TV show last week, that Tunisia is a country where life is not pleasant. 

During a show on the Carthage Plus TV channel, Dahmani responded to another panelist's claim that sub-Saharan migrants were seeking to settle in Tunisia.

"What extraordinary country are we talking about?" she asked sarcastically. 

She was commenting on a speech by Saied, who said there was a conspiracy to push thousands of undocumented migrants from Sub-Saharan countries to stay in Tunisia. 

'Attack on the Tunisian legal profession'

The bar association has long carried “symbolic power” in Tunisia, so much so that authorities didn’t enter its doors under its pre-Arab Spring dictator, Fadoua Braham, a Tunisian lawyer, told The Associated Press.

“Today we are seeing hooded individuals using force and taking away a lawyer by force because of, quite simply, a matter of opinion,” she said, noting that those who arrested Dahmani were not clearly identifiable as law enforcement officers.

Other civil society organisations expressed concern and said the arrest contributed to an ongoing crackdown on human rights defenders, activists, journalists and opposition leaders.

The Tunisian General Labour Union, the country’s most powerful workers’ group, joined other civil society organizations, activists and lawyers at the bar association headquarters on Sunday.

The group said it “strongly condemns this blatant and unprecedented attack on the Tunisian legal profession and considers it one of the preludes to establishing a state of violations and tyranny, especially since it came after a wave of incitement, promotion of hate speech, division and treason.”

'Fake news' decree

Also on Saturday, broadcaster Borhen Bssais and political commentator Mourad Zeghidi were arrested for making critical comments, lawyer Ghazi Mrabet told AFP.

Mrabet said the judiciary on Sunday placed both under a "48-hour detention warrant and (they) will have to appear before an examining magistrate".

He said Zeghidi was being pursued "for a social media post in which he supported an arrested journalist", Mohamed Boughalleb. He was sentenced to six months in prison for defaming a public official and over "statements made during television shows since February".

Arrest warrants were issued for Bssais and Zeghidi for disseminating "false information... with the aim of defaming others or harming their reputation", Tunis court spokesperson Mohamed Zitouna told AFP.

Mrabet said Bssais was detained under Decree 54, which punishes the production and dissemination of "false news".

The law, signed by Saied in September 2022, has been criticised by journalists and opposition figures who say it has been used to stifle dissent. Since it came into force, more than 60 journalists, lawyers and opposition figures have been prosecuted, according to the National Union of Tunisian Journalists.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)