Couple Sofiene Ben Hamida
The manner in which feminist and political activist Chayma Issa was arrested is not an isolated individual act. Nor is it a simple blunder committed by young police officers who got carried away thanks to the ambient fervor which accompanied the march on Saturday November 29, 2025. These police officers only carried out the orders of their superiors. The latter obviously wanted this arrest to be ostentatious and more akin to a kidnapping than to an arrest within the framework of the law. They wanted to convince us, for those who are not yet convinced, of the true nature of the power in place: an authoritarian state backed by police power.
An ostentatious and assumed arrest
The argument that Chayma Issa intended to flee, put forward by the servile servants of power, in the absence of official sources, to explain this arrest, does not hold water and is not corroborated by the facts. It is obvious that neither she nor any other of the defendants in this incredible case of conspiracy against the state, who were at large and who received heavy sentences, had the intention of fleeing or clandestinely leaving the country.
Moreover, just like Chayma Issa, Ahmed Néjib Chebbi and Ayachi Hammami were present, engaged as never before, with their faces uncovered, to chant their convictions at the top of their lungs with the other participants in the march.
A repressive method that persists
What the Tunisian police, which are struggling to become a republican police force, have not yet understood is that this muscular and theatrical method of arrests is not productive. It was widely used under the dictatorship of Ben Ali without being able to prevent the revolution from ousting it.
It was tried with Issam Chebbi, Jawher Ben Mbarek, Noureddine Bhiri, Abir Moussi, Sonia Dahmani and many others, in vain. In the meantime, there was the revolution which made Tunisians more fierce when it came to defending their rights and their freedom.
So-called fair but contested justice
The servile servants of power continue to assert that the police acted within the framework of the law and were only carrying out a court decision. They add that, in the context of the so-called conspiracy case, justice was fair since the final verdict certainly increased certain sentences, but ordered the acquittal of several other accused.
We should perhaps congratulate our fair justice for having made so much effort to verify that lawyer Lazher Akremi did not visit Libya, or to convince ourselves that Hattab Slama has not committed any crime except probably that of a banal prohibited parking by parking his car in front of the house of another accused, Khayem Turki, or even to ensure that Noureddine Boutar has definitely joined the ranks.
Should we not question this fair justice system for having ruined the lives of these citizens and their families without reason, for almost three years? Shouldn’t we ask this fair justice for explanations as to why Ghazi Chaouachi, Jawhar Ben Mbarek, Ridha Belhaj and Issam Chebbi saw their sentences increase from 18 to 20 years of imprisonment while no new elements were added to their cases? Is it to punish them for going on hunger strike and continuing to resist injustice even from inside their jails?
No, let’s say it frankly, the Tunisian judiciary, forced to act as justice, does not guarantee a fair trial, either in the so-called conspiracy case or in other political cases. Even if, occasionally, prisoners were released, which is great for them and those around them, the problem would remain unsolved: justice does not consist of giving back to citizens their freedom arbitrarily confiscated, but of ensuring that arbitrariness no longer has any right to exist.
