Saif Ayedi

Background and Work

Saif Ayedi is a member of the Bardo section of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the country's oldest independent human rights organization. He also belongs to the Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality. Both organizations monitor state violence, document detention conditions, and advocate for legal reforms.

Ayedi is part of the national "Learn to Swim" campaign, a coalition that seeks to end impunity for police violence in Tunisia. The campaign takes its name from the 2018 death of Omar Laabidi, a nineteen-year-old football supporter who drowned in a river while fleeing police officers who had attacked a crowd with tear gas and batons. His body was recovered the following day bearing marks of violence. The campaign has pressed for prosecutions in Laabidi's case and other deaths in custody.

As an active member of the League's prison-monitoring programme, Ayedi conducts visits to detention centres across Tunisia. He interviews detainees and their families, gathers testimony from witnesses to police abuses, and coordinates with lawyers to file complaints. In mid-October 2022, he was among the first to visit the family of Melek Selimi, a young man who died after an encounter with police in Cité Ettadhamoun. He interviewed Fourat Ayari, Selimi's close friend and the sole eyewitness to the events.

The Arrest

On 19 October 2022, Ayedi attended a press conference at the headquarters of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists in Tunis. He was part of the coordination team that organized the event on behalf of Omar Laabidi's family. After the conference ended, he and two colleagues took a taxi toward his workplace. A car carrying plainclothes officers intercepted the taxi, forced Ayedi out, and drove him to an unknown location without identifying themselves or producing a warrant. His colleagues followed the vehicle and confirmed that he had been taken to the National Guard station in Cité Ettadhamoun.

Ayedi's lawyers were informed that the arrest order came from the Public Prosecutor's Office as part of a coordinated campaign targeting individuals linked to ongoing protests in Cité Ettadhamoun and surrounding areas. Residents of these neighbourhoods, especially young people, had taken to the streets to denounce the police violence that led to Melek Selimi's death. Ayedi's role in documenting that death and his membership in prison-monitoring networks appeared to have placed him on the authorities' list.

Legal Proceedings

On 20 October 2022, Ayedi appeared before the Public Prosecutor in Ariana, who referred the case to an investigating judge in the same district. The judge ordered that questioning be resumed at the National Guard station in Cité Ettadhamoun, citing a lack of investigative elements. Ayedi spent a second night in detention.

On 21 October 2022, the investigating judge in Ariana concluded the interrogation and declared Ayedi exempt from all charges. He was released the same day. No formal charges were ever specified in court documents or public statements, and no reasoning for the initial arrest was disclosed beyond the prosecutor's reference to the protest-related sweep.

Context

Ayedi's arrest came amid a broader pattern of judicial harassment targeting Tunisian human rights defenders who document police violence. Since President Kais Saied assumed emergency powers in July 2021, activists monitoring detention conditions, lawyers defending protesters, and journalists covering security-force abuses have faced arrest, travel bans, and prosecutions under vaguely worded statutes. The "Learn to Swim" campaign and the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights have both reported increased surveillance and interference with their prison-monitoring work.