Tunisian police brought Mohamed Yousfi, editor-in-chief of the investigative site Al-Qatiba, in for questioning on Friday. The head of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists told Reuters. Local journalists said the focus of the investigation is unknown. The government has not commented. [1]
Wire copy will file another crackdown under President Kais Saied. That is not wrong. It is incomplete. Unlike a personnel memo, there is not even a stated theory. No named inquiry. No predicate. An editor is in a room and the state will not say why.
The pattern is the charge sheet the police will not produce. Khaoula Boukrim, founder of TUMEDIA, who fled to France last year, was sentenced in June to four years in absentia. Zied el-Heni was sentenced in May to one year in prison. Broadcaster Mourad Zeghidi and commentator Borhen Bsaies were sentenced in January to three and a half years. [1] Rights groups have warned of a widening campaign against independent voices since Saied dismantled democratic safeguards. [1] Yousfi's Friday is the next unnamed hour in that sequence.
Thursday, the Court of Cassation rejected the final appeals of dozens of opposition figures and upheld prison sentences of up to 45 years for people accused of conspiring to overthrow Saied. The ruling closed three years of proceedings against 40 defendants, including opposition leaders, lawyers, businessmen, and human rights defenders. Half were sentenced in absentia after leaving the country. [2]
Najib Chebbi, leader of the National Salvation Front, was given 12 years. His daughter, lawyer Haifa Chebbi, said the ruling "confirms that the judiciary is not independent." "Opponents entered prison by political decision and will leave when Saied falls," she said. [2] Justice Minister Leila Jaffel said the defendants sought to destabilise the country. [1] [2] Saied has described the accused as "traitors and terrorists" and warned that judges who acquitted them would be treated as accomplices. [2] Lawyers said they were notified of Thursday's hearing on Monday. [2]
Among those sentenced Thursday: Said Ferjani, a former Ennahda MP, ten years after a reduction on appeal; Ennahda founder Rached Ghannouchi, already jailed in 2025, fourteen years from a June term; Ghazi Chaouachi, Issam Chebbi, Jawhar Ben Mbarek, and Ridha Belhaj, twenty years each; Noureddine Bhiri, ten. [2] Dalila Msaddek, whose brother Ben Mbarek was among the convicted, wrote that "the legal battle is now over … what begins is a purely political battle." [2] Saied has ruled largely by decree, dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council, and dismissed dozens of judges. His government rejects accusations of political persecution. [2]
That mass trial has a docket, a sentence, and a government line. Yousfi's arrest has none of those. Al-Qatiba is an investigative newsroom. The police will not say which investigation. The culture file is the missing predicate. A reader of only the crackdown headline will think Tunisia jailed another critic, which is the atmosphere. A reader who asks what the editor is accused of will find a blank. The syndicate named the arrest. The police did not name the case.
-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin