Release ex-PM Ali Laarayedh, Human Rights Watch tells Tunisia

Tunisia has been urged to release former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh, a top-level figure in the Islamist Ennahda party who has been detained since December.

Lawyers for the 68-year-old ex-premier lodged a complaint in late January alleging police had falsified key case file documents, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a press release on Tuesday.

The watchdog said it had seen his detention warrant, adding that he was accused of failing to hold back the spread of Salafism, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, and the Ansar Al-Sharia militant group while in office.

"The warrant indicates he is being prosecuted for his decisions and policies in office and not for specific criminal acts," HRW said.

HRW Tunisia director Salsabil Chellali added: "Based on the available information, Laarayedh's prosecution seems like one more example of President [Kais] Saied's authorities trying to silence leaders of the Ennahda party and other opponents by tarring them as terrorists.

"The authorities should immediately free Laarayedh and other political figures and critics they are holding in the absence of credible evidence of crimes."

Laarayedh was interior minister of Tunisia from December 2011 to February 2013 and prime minister from March 2013 to January 2014.

Laarayedh's detention comes after a 2021 power grab by President Kais Saied. Since then, hundreds of political opponents have been detained and a constitution widely described as "authoritarian" has been enacted. Human Rights Watch also says that the country's judiciary has been "subjugated".

"Ennahda leaders have been a key target of the authorities since Saied granted himself extraordinary powers," the watchdog added.

Laarayedh's detention comes amid a wide-ranging police investigation into how thousands of Tunisians managed to travel abroad and join militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, including the Islamic State, after dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fell from power in 2011.

Laarayedh is accused of "not addressing or fighting the Salafi phenomenon" in the detention warrant – despite Tunisia not prohibiting the ideology – and "more specifically the organisation of Ansar Al-Sharia in the necessary way".

He is also accused of "not dealing with Ansar Al-Sharia as a terrorist organisation", despite his government classing it as a terror group in 2013, and of allowing Muslim "preachers who are well known for their extremism… [to] enter the territory in spite of border procedures".

His lawyers lodged a complaint in January, currently pending before prosecutors, alleging police had falsified key case file documents.

They also maintain police deliberately removed evidence produced by authorities that was favourable for Laarayedh.

His lawyers have twice lodged petitions for provisional release but both efforts failed.