Tunisian authorities have ordered the Human Rights League to cease its activities for one month, a fresh blow to one of the country’s oldest rights groups and a co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. The suspension lands in a country already under fire for growing restrictions on the opposition, media and civil society.
The league, founded in 1976, said the move fits “a wider pattern of increasingly systematic curbs on civil society and on free and independent voices.” It has also been barred for several months from visiting prisons in several cities to inspect conditions, cutting off one of its most visible oversight roles.
The latest suspension does not stand alone. Tunisia halted several other prominent groups in October, including the Democratic Women and the Economic and Social Rights Forum, as authorities widened pressure on independent organizations. Those measures have sharpened concern that the space for public criticism is narrowing fast.
That concern is tied to President Kais Saied, who has ruled by decree since he suspended parliament in 2021. Saied has denied that he is seeking to be a dictator, and he has said that freedoms are guaranteed in Tunisia, but that no one is above the law, regardless of their name or position.
For many Tunisians and rights advocates, the issue is no longer whether the country is drifting. Tunisia was once hailed as the only democratic success story to emerge from the Arab Spring 15 years ago. Today, the question is how much room remains for groups like the Human Rights League to operate before the country’s last independent voices are pushed even further to the margins.
