Human rights organizations from Geneva and Paris announced their intention to file a complaint with the United Nations against Tunisian President Kais Saied and Interior Minister Tawfiq Sharaf El-Din, against the background of the “kidnapping” of the leader of the Ennahda movement and former Minister of Justice Noureddine El Beheiry, while political figures and activists organized a protest in solidarity with him.
This came during a press conference in the presence of lawyer Saida Al-Akrabi, wife of Noureddine El-Beheiri, who announced during her intervention that she would file a complaint against the Minister of the Interior, Tawfiq Sharaf El-Din and the Wali of Bizerte, and against security leaders, including the commander of the Tunisian National Guard, for their involvement in the kidnapping of her husband, Noureddine El-Beheiry.
Al-Akrimi confirmed that what her husband was subjected to was a full-fledged crime of kidnapping and enforced disappearance, as she described, stressing that he was kidnapped without judicial permission and without the knowledge of the judicial authorities.
Pause in front of the hospital
In the same context, a number of political figures, including the head of the political body of the Hope Party, Najib Chebbi, and members of the "Citizens Against the Coup" campaign, staged a sit-down in front of the regional hospital in Bizerte, in support of Al-Buhairi.
The participants in this vigil held President Kais Saied and Interior Minister Tawfiq Sharaf El-Din responsible for the deteriorating health of Al-Buhairi.
The security authorities prevented the participants in the vigil from entering the hospital, or allowed them to meet with the doctors treating Al-Buhairi to check on his health.
For his part, Mahfouz al-Baldi, brother of Fathi al-Baldi, a former employee of the Tunisian Interior and detained in Tunisia, said that an unknown force had forcibly kidnapped his brother in front of his family members and his elderly father.
Mahfouz al-Baladi demanded the immediate release of his brother and not to involve him in political cases, denying that his brother had any political affiliations, as he put it.
The Executive Office of the Ennahda Movement had demanded the immediate release of Noureddine El-Behairy and Fathi El-Baladi, and considered them to be forcibly detained, in the absence of any judicial authorization.
The movement denounced the continuation of what it called campaigns to distort the judiciary through attempts to control it by presidential decrees and calling for the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council, under the pretext of reform.
The Ennahda movement also called for a boycott of the electronic referendum, stressing that it is a focus of individual rule, and for participation in the demonstrations of January 14, in rejection of President Kais Saied's decisions.
A call for solidarity
For its part, the defense team for Noureddine Al-Buhairi said that the kidnapping of Al-Buhairi was a full-fledged crime.
In a statement, the authority called on the profession's structures, led by the Dean of Lawyers, to show solidarity with Al-Buhairi and his wife, Saeeda Al-Akrimi, a member of the Bar Council, who was assaulted during the kidnapping.
The defense committee also called for an urgent news public session to deliberate on the situation of Al-Buhairi and what it described as the deteriorating situation of rights and freedoms in the country.
Human Rights Threats Growing
Externally, Human Rights Watch confirmed in a statement that the arrest of al-Buhairi and Fathi al-Baldi shows the growing threat to the protections afforded to human rights, since President Kais Saied seized power last July.
Human Rights Watch called on the Tunisian authorities to immediately release El-Buhairi and El-Baldi, who are being arbitrarily detained, or to provide evidence against them if they have any actual crime committed.