Tunisia’s civil society faces growing pressure as crackdown widens

Tunis, Tunisia – Tunisia’s authorities have sharply intensified pressure on civil society, prosecuting activists and NGO workers, investigating groups’ finances and suspending dozens of associations in a campaign that Human Rights Watch says has severely narrowed the civic space that emerged after the 2011 revolution.In a 49-page report released on Wednesday, the rights group documented what it described as escalating repression of local and international civil society organisations, their workers and affiliates through arrests, lengthy preventive detention, criminal and financial investigations, mass suspensions and threats of dissolution.Human Rights Watch said authorities have prosecuted at least 47 people connected to nongovernmental organisations and held at least 10 people in preventive detention for longer than 14 months, exceeding the maximum period permitted under Tunisian law.After trials in 2025 and 2026, at least 14 people connected to civil society have been convicted and sentenced to prison, the rights group said.Among them is prominent human rights defender Saadia Mosbah, who was sentenced to eight years in prison and a heavy fine on financial crime charges on March ...