Tunis – Tunisian opposition figure Ahmed Nejib Chebbi was arrested Thursday, his daughter said, after he was sentenced to 12 years in jail in a mass trial denounced by rights groups as part of a major crackdown on dissent.
“After Chebbi’s arrest, virtually the entire Tunisian opposition is now in prison or in exile,” Human Rights Watch’s MENA spokesman Ahmed Benchemsi told AFP.
“Fifteen years after the revolution, it is as if dictatorship has officially marked its return,” he added.
Amnesty International said the trial and Chebbi’s arrest were part of the authorities’ “blind and repressive escalation” in cracking down on dissenting voices.
“The arrest of Chebbi today, like the arrests of activist Chaima Issa and human rights defender Ayachi Hammami in recent days, is confirmation of the Tunisian authorities’ chilling determination to clamp down on peaceful dissent,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, told AFP.
‘Eliminate dissent’
“Their convictions, along with dozens of others in the so-called conspiracy case following a sham trial, demonstrates how the justice system in Tunisia today is being used to eliminate political dissent,” Hashash added.
“It signals that those participating in peaceful opposition are at real risk of arrest and unjust imprisonment.”
Hammami, a rights activist and lawyer, was arrested on Tuesday, following political figure Issa’s arrest on Saturday. They were handed five and 20 years in prison respectively in the same trial.
Police officers took Chebbi from his home, his emotional daughter Haifa told AFP. She is also a lawyer and a former law student under Saied.
His lawyer, Amine Bouker, also confirmed the arrest.
Tunisia’s “political scene has become frightening”, Bouker told AFP.
Tunisian police have arrested veteran opposition leader Nejib Chebbi to enforce a 12-year prison sentence on a conspiracy conviction, his family said on Thursday, marking a sharp escalation in President Kais Saied’s crackdown on political dissent. pic.twitter.com/3z8gHgT5Jg
— Africalix (@Africa_lix) December 5, 2025
Tunisia emerged from the Arab Spring as a democracy but Saied staged a sweeping power grab in 2021 and rights groups have since criticised a major rollback of freedoms.
The FSN was formed after Saied suspended parliament that year.
In his last address to the public in a video posted by the FSN, Chebbi said: “I’m going to prison at this advanced age with a clear conscience because I have done nothing wrong.”
A long-time opposition figure under former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Chebbi once led the Progressive Democratic Party.
He had briefly served as the local development minister after Ben Ali’s fall in 2011, and later sat in the National Constituent Assembly from 2011 to 2014.
‘Targeting everyone’
Dozens of Saied’s critics have been prosecuted or jailed, including on terrorism-related charges and under a law the president enacted in 2022 to prohibit “spreading false news”.
Last week, the European Parliament voted to urge Tunisia to release “all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including political prisoners and human rights defenders”.
But Saied condemned the resolution as “blatant interference”, saying the European Union could “learn lessons from us on rights and freedoms”.
On Wednesday, representatives from opposition parties including Ennahdha — whose leader, Rached Ghannouchi, is currently also in prison serving lengthy sentences — held a meeting where they called for closing ranks.
Lawyer Samir Dilou denounced a “steamroller targeting everyone” while Wissem Sghaier, spokesman for the Al Joumhouri party, condemned “a situation unprecedented in the modern history of Tunisia”.
At a rally called by the UGTT trade union to commemorate the assassination of union leader Ferhat Hached, hundreds chanted anti-government slogans, calling for “freedoms” and an end to “autocratic rule”.
Another demonstration has been called by NGOs and political parties for Saturday under the slogan: “Opposition is not a crime”.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, X and Instagram
Picture: Screengrab
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Source: AFP
