For Tunisian feminism, August 13, Tunisian Women’s Day, declared a national holiday in 1957, has always been a day of protest in favour of equality. However, this year the feminist organisations grouped under the Feminist Dynamics platform have decided to put aside their traditional demands – such as equality between men and women in inheritance rights – to launch a campaign with a more urgent objective: the release of eight prisoners of conscience. The authoritarian drift of President Kais Said makes no exceptions, not even in terms of gender, in his desire to silence any dissenting voice.
“Never before in Tunisia’s history have we had so many women imprisoned for their political opinions. That’s why we launched the campaign,” explains Dalila Mahfoud, president of the organization. Mussawat (Equality), a member of Feminist Dynamics. The mobilization culminated on Tuesday with a demonstration in the center of the capital attended by hundreds of people surrounded by a strong police presence. The participants repeated slogans such as “Against reaction, feminist revolution!” and “Freedoms, the police state is dead!” For decades, Tunisia has been among the most advanced countries in the Arab world in terms of women’s rights. For this reason, the feminist movement is particularly influential in this country.
The prisoners of conscience targeted by the campaign – Cherifa Riahi, Saadia Mosbah, Sonia Dahmani, Chaima Issa, Chadha Hadj Mbarek, Leila Kallel, Mariem Sassi and Abir Moussi – include politicians, journalists and social activists. Following the launch of the campaign,On July 25, the initiative to call for her release led to the arrest of another prominent political figure, Sihem Bensedrine, a historic dissident during the Ben Ali dictatorship and president of the Tunisian Truth Commission created in the midst of the democratic transition, which was aborted by Said’s self-coup in 2021.
The list of those targeted also includes several women in exile, such as former MP Bouchra Belhaj Hamida and former minister Sayida Ounissi, or those facing legal proceedings, such as the mayor of Tabarka, Amel Alloui. All of them have been critical of the regime for various reasons over the past two years.
“Kais Said has a patriarchal view of the role of women in society. He does not believe in equality, but rather that women should be a complement to men, who are the ones in charge,” says Mahfoud. The political representation of half of the Tunisian population is an area where there has been a clear regression since Said came to power. The regime eliminated the rule requiring gender parity on electoral lists, which has resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of female deputies in Parliament. While in the Popular Assembly dissolved by Said three years ago, 47% of deputies were women, now the percentage is only 16%.
“Over time, restrictions on individual freedoms have been increasing,” says Inés Jaibi, a lawyer who works as a researcher for the think tank TIMEP, which considers it appropriate to refer to the women targeted by the campaign as “political prisoners” because their trials have not been sufficiently guaranteed, has been condemned. Many of them, although not all, have been convicted on the basis of the so-called Decree 54 of 2021, which establishes punishments for the dissemination of fake news. “It is a very ambiguous text, not even for legal experts it is clear what type of acts are prohibited. This leaves a very wide margin of interpretation for the authorities,” explains Jaibi. In total, the number of prisoners of conscience in the country exceeds forty.
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Against freedom of the press
One sector that is in the regime’s crosshairs is the independent press, which has so far managed to avoid becoming a mere transmission belt for the government, as happened years ago with public television. According to the Tunisian Journalists’ Syndicate, since May 2023, 39 legal proceedings have been brought against reporters for opinion crimes, most of them based on Decree 54, and five professionals are in prison. “The restrictions are gradually eliminating criticism and diversity of opinion from the Tunisian media landscape. Political debate has almost disappeared from the airwaves,” says Bassam Khawaja, deputy director for North Africa and the Middle East at Human Rights Watch.
Most observers link the growing repression to the presidential elections on October 6. One of the women included in the Feminist Dynamics campaign, Abir Moussi, is a candidate who was sentenced to two years in prison last week, the same day that five other candidates were sentenced. Following the electoral commission’s selection process made public on Saturday, only three candidates will be able to run in the elections. In addition to President Said, two little-known former MPs have been given the green light: the liberal Ayachi Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui, who shares Said’s pan-Arab ideology. “The Administrative Court must review the electoral commission’s decision in the coming days, and it could be that it rules in favour of one of the disqualified candidates. It is a court that has a history of unfavourable verdicts for the government, even under the Ben Ali regime,” warns Jaibi.
The alleged attempt to eliminate the most dangerous opponents from the electoral race could be a response to a feeling of weakness on the part of Said. His self-coup was welcomed by a large majority of Tunisians, but support for the president has been waning as time has not restored the longed-for prosperity of yesteryear.
“The wave of arrests in the spring has affected his popularity, and even some of his most prominent supporters have withdrawn their support,” says an analyst who wishes to remain anonymous. In polls, Said retains the support of more than 40% of the population, but a recent study suggests that a significant part of society, between 10% and 30%, is afraid and hides its opposition to the president from pollsters.
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