Overview
- Lawyers say plainclothes officers seized Issa and forced her into a vehicle during the Tunis rally.
- The demonstration drew hundreds to denounce restrictions on expression and was organized by ATFD and Aswat Nissa.
- Issa, a poet and opposition figure, had been sentenced a day earlier to 20 years in prison on appeal.
- An appeals court also handed heavy prison terms to about forty defendants in cases criticized by Human Rights Watch as a political trial.
- NGOs report a sustained erosion of civil liberties since 2021, with opponents, journalists, lawyers and aid workers prosecuted under conspiracy charges and a decree on false information.