Thirty-nine international legal and human rights organizations—including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists—issued a joint statement on June 5, 2026, condemning what they describe as the Tunisian authorities’ systematic and escalating campaign of intimidation, prosecution, and retaliation against lawyers, judges, and independent civil society, a pattern that has deepened since President Saïed’s consolidation of executive power in 2021 and his dismissal of 57 judges and prosecutors by decree in 2022. The signatories voiced particular alarm at efforts to delegitimize the Tunisian National Bar Association (ONAT)—whose decisions the Tunis prosecutor sought to nullify after it planned strikes including a nationwide general strike set for June 18—and documented the targeting of lawyers for their professional work: eight are currently detained (including a former Bar President), five forced into exile, and twelve facing judicial harassment, with cases such as Ayachi Hammami’s five-year sentence, Chawki Tabib’s ten-year conviction, and Sonia Dahmani’s additional two-year sentence cited as illustrative. The statement also detailed reprisals against the judiciary, including the imprisonment of Judge Anas Hmedi (head of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates) and suspension orders against at least 25 civil society organizations, and called on Tunisia to release those arbitrarily detained, drop politically motivated proceedings, lift the suspensions, and bring its laws into line with international human rights obligations.

Read it here.