Sassi was arrested after a raid on his household’s house on Wednesday evening.
Al Jazeera journalist Samir Sassi has been arrested by Tunisian “anti-terrorism” officers at his house in Tunis.
In keeping with Sassi’s spouse, a squad of officers raided their house on Wednesday evening, going by the household’s possessions and confiscating cell phones from each member of the household in addition to Sassi’s laptop computer and copies of novels he had written and printed regionally in Tunisia.
In keeping with Al Jazeera Bureau Director Lotfi Hajji, a group of attorneys spent practically 12 hours after Sassi’s arrest to attempt to verify the place he had been taken.
Mysterious detention, apprehensive household
“They went from one police station to another, one court to another, until finally they were able to find out that he had been taken to the anti-terrorism unit in Ariana,” Hajji mentioned. Ariana is a province simply north of the capital Tunis.
To this point, Hajji added, the federal government has not offered any info relating to what Sassi may be charged with and it’s not anticipated that there will likely be any such announcement earlier than 48 hours have handed since his arrest.
Tunisia implements an automated 48-hour interval throughout which a detained individual can not entry a lawyer if they’ve been arrested on “terrorism-related” prices.
Sassi’s spouse and kids are nonetheless shaken by the expertise and are very apprehensive about him, Hajji mentioned. Whereas Sassi is usually in good well being, it’s exhausting to guess what situations he’s being held in and what influence that may have on him bodily, he mentioned.
Sassi’s youngest little one, Moayed el-Hak, is six years outdated and lives with power well being points. His three older siblings are his brother Mortadha, 19, sister Tuqa, 16, and brother Mohamed, 13.
Stifled freedoms
Freedom of the press has been dramatically curtailed in Tunisia, not least following the introduction of Decree 54 in September 2022.
Whereas the legislation is ostensibly to focus on the spreading of false info on-line, it has been used to focus on journalists and on-line activists, with a minimum of 20 journalists, critics and activists arrested beneath it to date, Human Rights Watch (HRW) mentioned.
Al Jazeera’s bureau was closed by President Kais Saied’s authorities in July 2021 when Saied was engaged in an influence seize on the finish of which he was ruling the nation by decree and had hobbled all its establishments.
Al Jazeera journalists are nonetheless accredited in Tunisia and proceed their work.
Tunisia has come beneath growing worldwide strain since its racially charged crackdown on the undocumented Black migrants who journey from throughout Africa to enter the nation, in addition to its more and more authoritarian responses to most types of criticism.
Presently, many opposition members, together with Rached Ghannouchi, the chief of the self-styled Muslim Democrats, Ennahda, are in jail.
Most not too long ago, police arrested three journalists – Khalifa Guesmi of Mosaique FM; Chadha Hadj Mbarek; then well-known radio journalist Zied el-Heni on December 28, charging him with insulting the Tunisian commerce minister, Kalthoum Ben Rejeb, on his radio programme, Emission Unimaginable, the identical day.
The Nationwide Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists had held a gathering to debate tips on how to assist Guesmi, Mbarek and el-Heni on January 3, hours earlier than Sassi’s house was stormed.
Responding to the present wave of arrests, Salsabil Chellali, HRW’s Tunisia director, instructed Al Jazeera: “The arrest of those journalists is an ominous begin to 2024.
“We’re still finding out the details of Sassi’s arrest, but it’s clear that, this year, the threats against the free press and journalists are becoming action.”