Tunisia: Minister of Interior – Recent House Arrest Decisions Were Taken in Accordance With Law
Tunis/Tunisia — The recent house arrest decisions were taken in accordance with the law and following ongoing investigations related to the illegal granting of passports, nationality certificates and identity cards, Interior Minister Taoufik Charfeddine said during a press conference held on Monday evening.
The minister said that the decisions of house arrest are based on an “enforceable” legal text, citing in particular Article 5 of Law No. 1978-50, which clearly attributes this prerogative to the Minister of the Interior.
According to the Minister, the infringements consist in the allocation of two passports by the Tunisian Embassy in Vienna in 1982 and 1948. These passports were extracted illegally and were the subject of a judicial investigation.
Other people were able to obtain birth certificates issued after the nationality certificate was obtained, the minister added.
Another violation: a certificate of nationality was issued on the basis of Article 8 of the decree of January 26, 1956, while this decree was completely repealed in 1962, according to the Minister of the Interior.
Taoufik Charfeddine also said that another person was able to obtain a certificate of nationality for a girl born of Syrian parents, adding that the judicial police commissioner had explicitly underlined the failure to respect the administrative procedures in place, and the presence of suspicion of terrorism in this case on the basis of the anti-terrorism law of 2015.
For the Minister, the recent decisions on house arrest are a mere administrative procedure. They could have been challenged in court, while the people concerned by these decisions have resorted to “illusions”, overbidding and provocation by the security forces, the minister accuses.
According to the minister, the president of the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture was allowed to visit the person concerned, with the possibility of transferring him to the military hospital, but this person preferred to remain in the hospital where he is bedridden.
At the beginning of the press conference, the Minister of the Interior warned against any attempt to involve the security institution in political wrangling”, promising zero tolerance in this regard”.
Ennahdha movement had announced on December 31 that the vice-president of the party and deputy Noureddine Bhiri was “abducted” by plainclothes policemen and “taken to an unknown place”.
In a statement, Ennahdha strongly denounces this dangerous precedent which is a warning sign that the country is entering a phase of authoritarianism and elimination of political opponents outside the law,” reads the same source.
