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TUNIS: A prominent Tunisian opposition figure has been hospitalized due to severe dehydration after over two weeks on hunger strike, his family said on Friday.
Jawhar Ben Mbarek, co-founder of the National Salvation Front, Tunisia’s main opposition alliance, has been detained since February 2023.
His relatives have warned that his health condition has “severely deteriorated” due to the hunger strike he launched to protest his imprisonment.
His sister, Dalila Ben Mbarek Msaddek, said in a Facebook post that doctors detected “a highly dangerous toxin” affecting Ben Mbarek’s kidneys caused by his protest.
Ben Mbarek “received treatment but refused nutritional supplements” at the hospital where he was transferred on Thursday night, insisting on continuing his now 17-day hunger strike, Msaddek said.
She said he was released and returned to prison on Friday afternoon.
On Wednesday, his family and lawyer said guards at the Belli prison where he is being held had beaten him.
Ben Mbarek’s lawyer, Hanen Khemiri, said she had filed a complaint to the public prosecutor alleging torture.
Prison authorities opened an investigation into the incident, his defense team said.
In April, after more than two years of pre-trial detention, Ben Mbarek was sentenced to 18 years behind bars on charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group” in a mass trial criticized by rights groups.
Rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in Tunisia since a sweeping power grab by President Kais Saied in July 2021.
Many of the president’s critics are currently behind bars.
Several other opposition figures — including Rached Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party who is also serving hefty prison sentences on similar charges — have launched a hunger strike in solidarity with Ben Mbarek.
Prison authorities have previously denied “the rumors about the deterioration in the health of any detainees, including those claiming to be on hunger strike,” maintaining they were under “continuous medical supervision.”