May 13. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Greater Tunis section of the Tunisian Bar Association has called an indefinite strike starting this Monday in protest of the arrest on Saturday of the lawyer and columnist Sonia Dahmani, arrested after making sarcastic comments about the situation in the country, and has arrested to two other journalists.
The president of the Bar Association of the capital region, Laroussi Zguir, has warned that this arrest sets a “dangerous precedent”, according to the Tunisian radio station Radio Kapitalis.
The College has thus requested the immediate release of Dahmani and has called on “the living forces to mobilize to defend the dignity of citizens, their rights and their freedoms.”
He has also urged bar associations in other regions and in particular the president of the Tunisian Bar Association, Hatem Mziou, to join the protest “to defend the dignity of lawyers and the profession.”
This Saturday afternoon, members of the security forces broke into the headquarters of the Tunisian Bar Association to arrest the lawyer and collaborator of the IFM radio station Sonia Dahmani, who was taking refuge there. In addition, journalists from the same channel Mourad Zghidi and Borhen Bsaiss have been arrested.
Dahmani was subject to a court order that, according to the spokesman for the Court of First Instance, Mohamed Zitouna, has nothing to do with her work as a lawyer. In statements to the aforementioned agency, Zitouna stressed that Dahmani was “on the run” from Justice.
In an open letter echoed by the Kapitalis news portal, Dahmani explained that he “took refuge” in the Bar Association “not to evade the action of justice” – because he considers that he has not committed “any act contrary to the law”–, but to consult with their lawyers how to confront “this flagrant injustice. Likewise, she has indicated that she is “a victim of the instrumentalization of Justice in the exercise of opinion.”
The order was issued days after the detainee made a statement on a Tunisian radio program ironically about the situation in the country: “What kind of extraordinary country are we talking about? One that half of its young people want to leave?”
Lawyers, activists and members of civil society have expressed their solidarity with Sonia Dahmani and against what they consider an “attack on freedom of expression”, according to the aforementioned media.
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