<\/p>\n
Sofiene Boukadi, a human rights activist, was arbitrarily arrested on 18 February 2023[1]<\/sup><\/a> by plainclothes police forces circulating in a normal vehicle without identifying or presenting themselves or presenting a judicial warrant. They confiscated his phone and escorted him to his family home, where his relatives live.<\/p>\n Police officers forcibly entered the home after breaking down the door and proceeded to conduct a search without presenting a clear warrant or publicly stated legal justification. According to the victim, the officers photographed him and mocked him without informing him of the nature of the accusations against him or the legal basis for the raid and search, constituting a serious violation of human dignity and of the legal safeguards guaranteed to him.<\/p>\n The search report also contained inaccurate information, as the officers claimed that the search had been conducted in the presence of his wife, even though the person concerned is not married. This raises serious concerns regarding the accuracy of the information recorded in the report and the integrity and legality of the procedures followed.<\/p>\n After that incident, he was taken to the specialized anti- terrorism unit in Laouina[2]<\/sup><\/a>, where he was put into custody and interrogated for 14 successive hours, according to his testimony by several security officers. He further states that he had not been notified of the charges against him nor was he granted the rights protected to him by the law, including the right to the presence of a lawyer.<\/p>\n During the interrogation, Sofiene described the process as highly tiring, given the long questioning hours and circumstances, which he described as heinous. He also noted that most of the questions focused on his civic and associative activities, his political positions, and his relations with civil society organizations. He further stated that he was again filmed using a mobile phone without his consent or any explanation, and that he was subjected to mockery and humiliation from the moment of the house search through to his time in detention, particularly during a thorough body search.<\/p>\n On the second day of custody, 19 February 2023, the investigation continued with Sofiene being interrogated for more than 12 hours, according to his estimate. He emphasized that the questioning remained largely political in nature, while he was still not informed of the charges against him. As the interrogation and associated exhaustion continued, his health condition began to deteriorate progressively.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Noticeable health symptoms developed, including high blood pressure and elevated sugar levels, according to his statement. Despite this, the interrogation continued, in clear disregard of the severity of his medical condition. It was later confirmed, according to the medical report, that he had suffered a heart attack.<\/p>\n On 20 February 2023, he was transferred to the Internal Security Forces Hospital in La Marsa after suffering a heart attack during the investigation. However, the officers requested that the doctor return him to the quarters of Laouina to continue the interrogation.<\/p>\n The investigation continued until 2 March 2023, when he was brought before the public prosecutor at the Judicial Counter Terrorism Division, which decided to refer the case to the\u00a0 Court of First Instance of Ben Arous.<\/p>\n On 3 March 2023, He was brought before the fourth investigating judge, where the victim stated that he had been treated in a degrading manner and that the issuance of medical reports was refused. A detention order was then issued against him, placing him in the civil prison of Mornaguia for one year on charges of conspiring against state security.<\/p>\n He also adds that he was deprived of his right to a defense, as his lawyer was prevented from representing him and was told that she herself was suspected of involvement in the case (her name reportedly appeared in the investigation file). On the same day, upon his admission to Mornaguia prison, he was placed in a cell known as a \u201cdisciplinary cell\u201d despite his critical health condition, where he suffered a hemorrhage from the mouth and ear on March 4, 2023. However, he was not seen by a doctor to receive medical treatment.<\/p>\n After 11 days, he was transferred to Charles Nicolle Hospital on March 15, 2023, under heavy security. There, he was diagnosed with severe internal bleeding, and it was likely linked to a heart attack. He remained in the hospital until March 17, 2023, after which he was returned to prison before completing his treatment, despite the doctor\u2019s objection. This led to a deterioration in his health.<\/p>\n He later suffered, at the beginning of August 2023, a temporary paralysis (hemiplegia), which required his transfer to the neurology department of Rabta Hospital.<\/p>\n During May, Sofiene suffered the loss of his brother. Despite his multiple attempts to attend, he was not allowed to attend the funeral held on May 17, 2023, which denied him fundamental human rights, including mourning his brother and participating in the burial and ceremonies.<\/p>\n On September 9, 2023, he suffered a health crisis that required his transfer to Charles Nicolle Hospital, where he stayed for one and a half months in the internal medicine department before being discharged on October 13, 2023. It was later revealed that he had suffered a second heart attack, likely resulting from medical negligence in prison. He was also diagnosed with heart failure and Beh\u00e7et\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n Following this, he was transferred to Aziza Othmana Hospital to undergo a medical procedure for sperm cryopreservation before starting treatment, in coordination with the internal medicine department of Charles Nicolle Hospital.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n He was visited by the Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice after he notified them of his intention to file a lawsuit regarding the serious health damage he had suffered. In this context, he stated that the inspector treated him in a manner that did not respect his human dignity, and that this was accompanied by an implicit threat, without consideration for his psychological and health condition.<\/p>\n He also confirmed that the prison administration did not provide him with the medication he was entitled to, nor did it allow his family to supply it to him. In addition, they refused to transfer him for medical treatment, despite the prison doctor\u2019s acknowledgment that such a transfer was necessary.<\/p>\n He was also subjected to an act of aggression in which the papers he used to write down his notes and personal writings in prison were torn up, including documents in which he was recording his health condition and detention circumstances, which constituted a violation of his right to expression and to document his situation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On November 6, 2023, he began a hunger strike that lasted 15 days in protest against being denied access to his medication, which consisted of 13 different types prescribed for the treatment of chronic illnesses, amid continued deprivation of medical care. This later led to permission being granted for him to receive his medication, but only sporadically and irregularly.<\/p>\n The hunger strike was also a protest against the refusal of the fourth investigating judge at the First Instance Court of Ben Arous to approve a petition allowing the extraction of medical reports documenting the deterioration of his health condition, according to Sofiene.<\/p>\n The doctor\u2019s request to subject him to a scan (scintigraphy) was also refused by the prison medical unit, which prevented a complete and accurate medical diagnosis to assess his heart condition. It is believed that this was done to limit evidence of the consequences of the medical negligence he had suffered.<\/p>\n It is also worth noting that, in addition to the harassment and ill-treatment he was subjected to inside the prison, the transfers between the prison and the hospital were carried out in harsh and inhumane conditions.<\/p>\n On December 18, 2024, a first-Instance ruling was released by the Court of First Instance of Ben Arous, ruling that the case concerning Conspiracy against the security of the state was inadmissible. He was instead referred under Article 24 of Decree 54 in connection with the reposting of a publication that was classified as offensive to the President of the Republic[5]<\/sup><\/a>. He was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 30,000 dinars.<\/p>\n The ruling was appealed, and appellate judgment No. 43068 issued by the Tunis Court of Appeal on June 3, 2025 upheld the initial verdict.<\/p>\n On March 2, 2026, he was released from prison after serving 3 years and 14 days, exceeding the legal sentence due to the failure to take into account the period of pre-trial detention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9203,"template":"","meta":{"datee":1676678400,"govern":"Nabeul Medina Delegation","violation_location_map":"\u0646\u0627\u0628\u0644, \u0634\u0627\u0631\u0639 \u0627\u0644\u062d\u0628\u064a\u0628 \u0628\u0648\u0631\u0642\u064a\u0628\u0629, La Jarre, \u0646\u0627\u0628\u0644, \u0627\u0644\u062d\u062f\u0627\u0626\u0642, \u0645\u0639\u062a\u0645\u062f\u064a\u0629 \u0646\u0627\u0628\u0644, \u0648\u0644\u0627\u064a\u0629 \u0646\u0627\u0628\u0644, 8000, \u062a\u0648\u0646\u0633"},"ecupation":[252],"case_status":[231],"governorate":[272],"violation_type":[240],"class_list":["post-9205","violations","type-violations","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecupation-human-rights-activist","case_status-231","governorate-nabeul-governorate","violation_type-arbitrary-arrest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/violations\/9205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/violations"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/violations"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/violations\/9205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9208,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/violations\/9205\/revisions\/9208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ecupation","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ecupation?post=9205"},{"taxonomy":"case_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case_status?post=9205"},{"taxonomy":"governorate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/governorate?post=9205"},{"taxonomy":"violation_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.intersection.uno\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/violation_type?post=9205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}