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TUNIS: A prominent Tunisian opposition figure on hunger strike for two weeks to protest his incarceration was beaten unconscious in prison by nearly a dozen guards and fellow inmates, his family alleged on Wednesday.
Jawhar Ben Mbarek, co-founder of the National Salvation Front, Tunisia’s main opposition alliance, has been detained since February 2023.
His sister, Dalila Ben Mbarek Msaddek, said in a Facebook video that “six prisoners and five guards” at the Belli prison where Ben Mbarek is being held “beat him until he lost consciousness” on Tuesday.
“The guards ordered the prisoners to assault him,” she said. “They tortured him because he refused to eat.”
The alleged beating took place days after relatives and lawyers warned that Ben Mbarek’s health was in an “alarming” state due to the hunger strike.
His lawyer, Hanen Khemiri, who visited Ben Mbarek earlier in the day, said she had filed a complaint to the public prosecutor alleging “torture.”
Khemiri said in a press conference Wednesday that Ben Mbarek bore the “traces of torture” and was left with a broken rib.
Ben Mbarek’s father, leftist activist Ezzedine Hazgui, said at the same press conference that he had met with the prison director, who accused Khemiri of “exaggerating the situation.”
Hazgui, however, said he was convinced “criminal guards beat my son.”
In April, after more than two years of pre-trial detention, Ben Mbarek was sentenced to 18 years behind bars on charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group” in a mass trial criticized by rights groups.
His appeal, alongside about 40 other defendants, is scheduled for next week.
Rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in Tunisia since a sweeping power grab by President Kais Saied in July 2021.
Many of the president’s critics are currently behind bars.
Several other opposition figures — including Rached Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party who is also serving hefty prison sentences on similar charges — have launched a hunger strike in solidarity with Ben Mbarek.
Prison authorities have previously denied “the rumors about the deterioration in the health of any detainees, including those claiming to be on hunger strike,” maintaining they were under “continuous medical supervision.”
According to local media reports, the Tunis prosecutor’s office ordered Wednesday that an investigation be opened into three lawyers based on complaints from the prison administration that they had spread “rumors and false information” about the hunger strikes.
Without naming the lawyers accused, the reports cited a judicial source as saying the complaints also concerned the circulation of information regarding prisoners’ health.