Tunisia: 14 lawyers referred to judiciary amid arrest campaign

Fourteen lawyers have been referred to the Tunisian judiciary, according to announcements on Thursday, after a campaign of investigations and arrests of opposition figures in the North African country in recent days. 

Among them were the former head of the bar association, Abderrazek Kilani, and Saida Akremi, the wife of Noureddine Bhiri, a top-level figure in the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. 

Samir Dilou, one of the lawyers in question, said: "These wholesale referrals show that the whole of the political opposition and those at the forefront of defending rights and freedoms, including the legal profession, have been targeted". 

"It is not only the legal profession that lives in darkness today, but all of Tunisia," he said in a statement to The New Arab's Arabic sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. 

"They do not fear justice," he added defiantly. "If it requires sacrifices, then they are ready." 

Another of the lawyers referred to the judiciary, Enas Harath, wrote on Facebook that "there are other cases involving some of those referred, and their arrest is possible even before the date set for questioning". 

"The type of case, charges, facts or procedures are of no importance. We are not in a country of laws.£

The referral of the lawyers to the judiciary comes after ten high-profile arrests were made in Tunisia in recent days, among them Ennhada members and a radio station chief. 

Kais Saied who became Tunisian president in 2019, froze parliament and seized far-reaching executive powers in July 2021 in what critics have called a "coup" and an attack on the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings more than a decade ago.

Saied later took control of the judiciary and pushed through a new constitution giving his office almost unlimited powers.