The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) strongly condemns the Tunis First Instance Criminal Court’s conviction, on 5 January 2026, of civil society actors Sherifa Riahi, Yadh Bousselmi and Mohamed Joo, as well as of former public officials Mohamed Iqbal Khaled and Imen Ouardani, solely for their legitimate work supporting asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants in Tunisia. Their unjust guilty verdicts follow the wrongful conviction, on 24 November 2025, of civil society actors Mustapha Djemali and Abderrazek Krimi on similar grounds.

.هذا البيان الصحفي متوفر باللغة العربية  أيضاً

“These latest convictions and sentences confirm that the right to freedom of association in Tunisia is in utmost jeopardy,” said Saïd Benarbia, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme director. “After the November 2025 wrongful conviction of Abderrazek Krimi and Mustapha Djemali, civil society actors continue to be unfairly and arbitrarily convicted and imprisoned for their peaceful and legitimate work in support of some of the most marginalized and at-risk communities in Tunisia.”

On 5 January 2026, the Court convicted Riahi, Bousselmi, Joo, current and former employees of Terre d’asile — a civil society organization working to uphold the human rights of asylum-seekers and refugees — alongside Iqbal Khaled and Ouardani, former Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Sousse, respectively, on unfounded charges of “sheltering individuals entering or leaving the Tunisian territory illegally” and “knowingly helping or attempting to facilitate the entry, exit, movement or irregular stay of a foreigner in Tunisia”, and imposed on each of them a two-year suspended sentence of imprisonment.  All of them were released on the same day after having spent one year and nine months in arbitrary pre-trial detention.

The arbitrary prosecution of Terre d’asile employees and municipal officials

On 7, 8 and 13 May 2024, the authorities arrested and detained Riahi, Bousselmi and Joo, respectively, the former director, current director and administrative/finance director of Terre d’asile. Khaled and Ouardani were also arrested and detained in the same case in May 2024. All of them, along with three other Terre d’asile employees and 15 other municipal officials, were charged with offences related to assisting “illegal migrants”. These charges, along with charges of “abuse of public office”, were ostensibly brought against the municipal officials on the basis of a partnership agreement in which Khaled and Ouardani, while still in office, had entered into with Terre d’asile, under which the association assisted the municipality in the provision of services to refugees and asylum-seekers. Riahi, Bousselmi, Joo, Khaled and Ouardani had been held in pre-trial detention since their arrest in May 2024.

In January 2025, an investigating judge at the Tunis Court of First Instance referred Riahi, Bousselmi, Joo, Khaled, Ouardani and a fourth Terre d’asile employee to trial, citing an alleged “European-backed civil society plan to promote the social and economic integration of irregular migrants into Tunisia and their permanent settlement”. The judge dismissed the charges against the other Terre d’asile and municipality employees, including financial crimes allegations against Terre d’asile as an association.

However, in February 2025, following an appeal from the prosecution, the Indictment Chamber at the Tunis Court of Appeal confirmed the charges against all six current and former Terre d’asile staff members and against 17 current and former Sousse municipality officials of “participating in a conspiracy to shelter individuals entering or leaving the Tunisian territory illegally” and “knowingly helping or attempting to facilitate the entry, exit, movement or irregular stay of a foreigner in Tunisia”, under Law 75-40 and Law 68-7, respectively. The 17 municipal officials were also charged with “abuse of public office”, under article 96 of the Penal Code.

At the first trial hearing on 15 December 2025, the Tunis First Instance Criminal Court decided to postpone its examination of the case to 5 January 2026, while rejecting the request for provisional release of Riahi, Bousselmi, Joo, Khaled and Ouardani, the only five defendants detained pending trial. During the second and final trial hearing on 5 January 2026, the other 18 defendants at liberty were acquitted.

A pattern of arbitrary detention and prosecutions of civil society actors

The above-mentioned wrongful convictions are but the latest attacks by the Tunisian authorities against employees of civil society organizations solely for their legitimate work upholding the human rights of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees and fighting racism.

With respect to this, for example, on 22 December 2025, in another notorious case, the Tunis First Instance Criminal Court postponed the trial of Saadia Mosbah, the president of Mnemty, an anti-racism association, and of seven other staff members of the same association to 26 February 2026, while rejecting the release request of Mosbah. Mosbah was arbitrarily arrested on 6 May 2024 and remanded into pre-trial detention on 16 May, where she has since then remained. She was charged, along with the other Mnemty staff members, with “money-laundering” crimes, under Law 2015-26, other financial crimes, as well as with criminal association offences. The other Mnemty staff members in this case remain at liberty. However, while the criminal association charge and the other charges against them were initially dismissed by the investigating judge, the Indictment Chamber overturned the dismissal of those charges and, thus, they remain charged with the same offences.

In another case, on 24 November 2025, the Tunis First Instance Criminal Court convicted Mustapha Djemali, director at the Tunisian Council for Refugees (CTR), a non-governmental organization, and his colleague, Abderrazek Krimi, in connection with CTR’s legitimate work as an implementing partner of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Further to their conviction on charges of “forming an organization to assist the clandestine entry of migrants”, under Law 75-40, the Court sentenced both Djemali and Krimi to two years’ imprisonment, although it released them, due to time already served as they had spent nearly 18 months in pre-trial detention since their arrest in May 2024, and ordered the suspension of the remainder of their sentence.

Additionally, between November and December 2024, the Tunisian authorities arrested and detained both the founder of Les Enfants de la Lune, Abdullah Said, and the executive director of the Promotion of the Right to Difference, Saloua Ghrissa. They have since been charged with unsubstantiated financial offences, supposedly related to the funding of the non-governmental organizations for which they worked, and await trial, a date for which has yet to be set. Said is also accused of forming a criminal association and undermining the external security of the State.

More generally, throughout 2024 and 2025, the Tunisian authorities have instrumentalized arbitrary court-ordered suspensions, asset freezes, and banking restrictions to further intimidate and harass civil society organizations working on various issues of concern, including but not limited to human rights, significantly hindering their capacity to operate in Tunisia.

In light of the above, the ICJ calls on the Tunisian authorities to guarantee, protect and uphold the right to freedom of association in accordance with its international human rights law obligations, including by ceasing the arbitrary prosecutions of civil society actors, immediately releasing those arbitrarily detained, and by quashing all wrongful convictions and dismissing all spurious criminal charges pending against people.

Background
On 6 May 2024, in a speech denigrating associations working to uphold the human rights of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, Tunisia’s President, Kaïs Saïed, branded staff at such non-governmental organizations as “traitors” and “mercenaries” and accused them of receiving “huge sums of money from abroad” in order to “settle these Africans in Tunisia.” Following this speech, the Tunisian authorities launched an unprecedented crackdown on NGOs working with refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants, including through arrest and subsequent arbitrary detention of the abovementioned individuals. These arrests took place in parallel with a wider crackdown by the Tunisian authorities against migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, including by collectively expelling over a hundred Black Africans to the Tunisian-Algerian and Libyan borders and perpetrating other egregious human rights violations against them.

Contact
Saïd Benarbia, Director, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme; t: +41 22 979 3800, e: said.benarbia@icj.org
Nour Al Hajj, Communications & Advocacy Officer, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme; e: nour.alhajj@icj.org