Tunisia: Family denied access to jailed opposition leader on hunger strike
Family members of a prominent Tunisian opposition figure say they have been denied access to him a week after he began a hunger strike in jail.
Said Ferjani, a leader of the largest opposition party, Ennahda, was arrested in Tunis in February 2023 on several charges, including “money laundering”, attempting to “change the nature of the state” and “undermining external state security”, among other accusations.
Since last week, the 70-year-old has been refusing both food and water, in protest at the poor conditions, lack of healthcare and failure of due process.
His daughter Kaouther told Middle East Eye that neither his family nor his lawyer have been able to receive updates on his current state of health.
"We know he's been having health issues and doctors are refusing to tell him his results or show him his medical files," she said.
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During a visit last Thursday, the family said he "wasn’t able to focus nor speak coherently".
Kaouther said she was hopeful that her father's sister would be able to visit this Thursday, but the authorities have been preventing access.
"The lawyer has been refused entry a few times, including for basic medical needs - every time administrative issues were cited," she said.
"It seems that ... the regime is scaring even doctors and bureaucrats for fear of being classed as supporters of my father, for giving him the simplest rights."
Ferjani's arrest came amid an escalating crackdown on journalists, politicians, activists, lawyers and the judiciary, in the wake of President Kais Saied’s 2021 seizure of power, in what critics have called a “constitutional coup”.
Two years after his election in 2019, Saied began ruling by decree.
Since spring 2023, more than 20 of Saied's opponents, including Rached Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahda, and Abir Moussi, chairwoman of the Free Destourian Party (PDL), have been imprisoned.
Ferjani had previously been jailed under the previous administration of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who was overthrown as president in 2011 by the Arab Spring protests.
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