AMP.- Tunisia.- HRW demands the release of former Justice Minister Nurredín Bhiri and denounces that Saied “threatens” human rights

Ennahda Vice President’s Wife Announces Hunger Strike to Protest His Detention

MADRID, 7 (EUROPA PRESS)

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has demanded this Friday the release of the former Tunisian Minister of Justice Nurredín Bhiri, detained “arbitrarily” by the government of Kais Saied, and has denounced that the president “threatens the protection of human rights. Huamnos “.

“The kidnapping-style detention of Nurredín Bhiri and Fazi Beldi (former Interior Ministry employee) demonstrates the growing threat to the protection of Human Rights since President Saied took power last July,” said the acting director of HRW for the Middle East and North Africa, Eric Goldstein.

Likewise, Goldstein has demanded that the Tunisian authorities immediately release both of them or that, if they have evidence of a “real crime”, they charge Bhiri and Beldi “in accordance with the law”. “It’s that simple,” he emphasized.

Bhiri was arrested last week and is hospitalized in a “critical” condition, according to his family and the Islamist group Ennahda, of which the former minister is one of the main high-ranking officials.

The Interior Minister, Taufik Charfedín, stressed on Monday that Bhiri was detained “within the framework of the law” and after investigations into the illegal delivery of passports, nationality certificates and identity documents.

For his part, Saied stressed on Wednesday that Bhiri will be given all the medical care he needs, after the politician went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest. In addition, the Ministry has issued a statement in which it points out that the detention was “preventive” and dictated by “the need to protect national security.”

According to one of Beldi’s lawyers, Latifa al Habachi, the former minister was intercepted on December 31 by men in civilian clothes, while the following day the police contacted his brother to tell him to take some of the belongings. de Beldi at a National Guard post in Al Manuba, but without revealing the exact location of the detainee.

That is why Goldstein has reproached the Tunisian authorities for having “bypassed the judiciary” to apprehend a “prominent figure of the party most critical of the president’s takeover.”

Finally, the HRW representative in the region has accused Saied of not being able to avoid “further intimidating” those citizens who oppose his takeover.

For her part, lawyer Saida Akremi, Bhiri’s wife, announced on Thursday that she was starting a hunger strike to protest against the arrest of her husband, after several days of protest at the Bizerte hospital where Bhiri is being admitted.

Akremi has indicated in statements granted to the Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM that he has ended his sit-in in the resuscitation wing of the Habib Bugatfa hospital out of respect for the workers and patients, although he has added that he will continue his protest in front of this department.

However, hours later a message was published on Bhiri’s account on the Facebook social network in which it was reported that Akremi had left the hospital at the invitation of the politician’s defense committee, without there being any further details for now.

Akremi herself assured Tuesday in statements given to the French television channel France 24 that the politician is “between life and death”, while calling his arrest a “kidnapping” and holding Saied “responsible” for your situation.

CRITICS OF THE PRESIDENT

Since Saied announced his decision to take over all powers, something criticized by Ennahda and other political parties, several parliamentarians have been arrested in the country, since the suspension of Parliament was linked to the withdrawal of their immunity.

The president announced on December 13 an extension of the suspension of Parliament until elections are held, which he called for December 17, 2022, within the framework of a process that will include a constitutional referendum on July 25 of next year.

During the day on Tuesday, the main union in Tunisia, the General Union of Workers of Tunisia (UGTT), criticized Saied for his ‘road map’. “We consider that setting a date for the elections, despite reservations, is an essential step that puts an end to the exceptional situation, although it does not break with the individualist mandate and exclusion,” explained the UGTT, which charged against Saied for to approve this plan “without taking into account the components of Tunisian society.”

In this sense, the union, which in 2015 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, also lamented “the ambiguity of the mechanisms, the absence of means of supervision and the dangers of interference in the process to affect its results.”

The Tunisian Constitution of 2014 only allows the suspension of Parliament for 30 days, a period widely exceeded, although Saied recently affirmed that said Magna Carta “has no legitimacy”, which has been criticized by several parties, including Ennahda, who dominated the majority. of seats in the legislative body.