A Tunisian advocacy group has called on United States President Joe Biden to confront Tunisian President Kais Saied during the latter’s visit to Washington for human rights abuses it says were carried out by high-ranking Tunisian officials over the past year.
The US-based Tunisian United Network (TUN) said on Monday that it had catalogued dozens of human rights abuses inflicted on Tunisian citizens since Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament in July 2021 and later decided to rule by decree.
“The violations include, but are not limited to, egregious free speech restrictions, the prosecution of peaceful dissent, blanket use of arbitrary travel bans, undermining fair trial rights, threatening freedom of association, police brutality, privacy infringement, arbitrary house arrests and detention, abduction and clandestine detention, and increased military prosecutions of civilians,” a TUN news release said, before adding that the offences “rise to the level of sanctionable violations” in the US.
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