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Human rights organizations and civil society groups condemned the detention of Tunisia’s former top anti-corruption official on financial charges as a politically motivated campaign of revenge aimed at silencing defenders of the nation's fading democratic institutions.
Chawki Al-Tabib, 62, the former head of the National Anti-Corruption Authority and a past president of the Tunisian Bar Association, was ordered imprisoned by an investigating judge on charges of money laundering, abuse of office, and the embezzlement of public funds. The judge also ordered a freeze on Al-Tabib's assets, Tunisia's state-run news agency, TAP, reported on Tuesday.
The official narrative claims the suspected abuses date back to Al-Tabib's tenure leading the anti-graft agency between 2016 and 2020. However, rights groups and legal advocates argue that the charges are a fabricated pretext to punish a vocal leader.
The local chapter of the nongovernmental organization Avocats Sans Frontières (Lawyers Without Borders) firmly rejected the arrest warrant, describing the prosecution as blatant "judicial harassment."
The group stated that targeting Al-Tabib is a clear instance of a broader "policy aimed at taking revenge on defenders of the independence of constitutional bodies and the repeated attempts to silence the voice of defense for prisoners of opinion."
The Intersection Association for Rights and Freedoms echoed these fears, stating that the arrest, which followed an April 10 police summons, "raises serious concerns about the existence of systematic practices aimed at exhausting and wearing him down through successive prosecutions."
The detention has sent shockwaves through Tunisia's legal community, which has increasingly found itself in the crosshairs of the state.
Boubaker Ben Thabet, the current head of the Tunisian Bar Association, issued a statement wholly rejecting the imprisonment of his predecessor, noting that Al-Tabib was jailed "without interrogation and before conducting an investigation into the case."
Additionally, the Tunisian Human Rights League demanded Al-Tabib's immediate release, condemning the arrest warrant as a "flagrant violation of law."
Al-Tabib is no stranger to the government's aggressive tactics. Following a sweeping seizure of emergency powers by President Kais Saied in the summer of 2021—a move critics have widely decried as a "self-coup" — Al-Tabib was placed under house arrest for 40 days.
During that period of political upheaval, Saied dissolved the National Anti-Corruption Authority, shut down the national Parliament, and dismantled the Supreme Judicial Council, effectively consolidating one-man rule.
Since the 2021 emergency measures, President Saied has continued to rule by decree. International and domestic rights groups have repeatedly warned that his ongoing dismantling of oversight institutions, coupled with the rising frequency of legal proceedings against civil society leaders like Al-Tabib, is fueling a systematic and dangerous rollback of Tunisia's hard-won democratic gains.
