Journalist and human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine was arrested in Tunisia on 1 August 2024 on fabricated charges. As Chairwoman of the Commission for Truth and Dignity (IVD), she campaigned to document human rights crimes committed by the dictatorships in Tunisia and to allow their legally investigation.
It was with great dismay that the Ibn Rushd Fund learnt of the arrest of Tunisian journalist and human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. She is one of the smart and courageous journalists who criticised and exposed the Arab despots and their regimes long before the Arab revolutions, which, as we know, began in Tunisia. For decades, Bensedrine campaigned for freedom, justice and freedom of expression and made a significant contribution to enlightening society about the oppression and injustice of the state. She thus played a significant role in creating the preconditions for the Arab revolutions and had to live in exile for several years (including as a guest of the Hamburg Foundation for Politically Persecuted Persons in 2002). She has received numerous awards for her courageous commitment to democratic change, including the Ibn Rushd Prize for Free Thought in 2011.
On 1 August 2024, Sihem Bensedrine (73) was arrested. She is accused of falsifying the commission report of the now dissolved “Commission for Truth and Dignity” (IVD), which she chaired. The IVD documented human rights crimes committed by the dictatorships in Tunisia between 1955 and 2011 and was intended to enable them to be legally investigated. In March 2023, a court banned Bensedrine from leaving Tunisia so that the public prosecutor’s office could investigate the alleged forgeries.
Sihem Bensedrine endeavoured to bring about transitional justice after the revolution in Tunisia and campaigned vehemently for more justice and against violence, oppression and torture. Sihem Bensedrine had already been active for the “League for Human Rights” under the dictator Ben Ali and repeatedly denounced serious human rights violations by the Tunisian regime, which subjected her to smear campaigns and slander for years. She was persecuted and monitored, was imprisoned several times, received death threats and survived several assassination attempts.
The accusations of forgery fall within a political context characterised by the resumption of the suppression of freedom of expression and the systematic dismantling of independent institutions in the young democracy. They are an act of political persecution and aim to nullify the IVD’s final report.. We demand the immediate release of Sihem Bensedrine, Rachid Ghannouchi and all other members of the opposition in Tunisia.
Since President Kais Said ousted parliament in 2021 and replaced the government with ministers of his choosing, numerous members of the opposition have been imprisoned, including the then speaker of parliament, the leading Tunisian opposition politician Rached Ghannouchi, who was awarded, among others, the Chatham House Prize (2012) and the Ibn Rushd Prize (2014). We call for the immediate release of Sihem Bensedrine, Rachid Ghannouchi and all other imprisoned opposition figures in Tunisia.
The Ibn Rushd Fund is joining the communiqué of “Lawyers without Borders” (“Avocats sans Frontières”) and the Civil Coalition for Transitional Justice (Excerpt – for the full text, please visit https://asf.be/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Communique-conjoint_Les-bras-securitaires-et-judiciaires-de-lexecutif-sapent-la-Verite-et-la-Dignite-en-Tunisie-2.pdf) in expressing:
- Their condemnation and denunciation of the judicial harassment, including travel bans and judicial pursuits culminating in the issuance of an arrest warrant on August 1st, faced by the President of the Truth and Dignity Commission, Ms. Sihem Ben Sedrine, for her work with IVD commission.
- Their rejection of the judiciary’s subjugation and manipulation according to electoral agendas to eliminate opposition and silence critics, harassing human rights defenders like Sihem Bensedrine, former commission heads, and actors of civil society, political opponents, and trade unionists, rather than maintaining an independent judiciary that effectively pursues perpetrators and human rights violators.
