French national detained in Tunisia on state security charges
The Tunisian president’s purge of practically anyone in the country who criticized him or his style of governance has now even extended to foreigners living there.
A French PhD student was detained on breach of state security charges in Tunisia on October 19th, according to Asharq Al-Awsat and agencies, with French authorities now trying to negotiate his release with officials close to President Kais Saied.
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Victor Dupont, 27, was arrested just before midday at his home in suburban Tunis along with three friends who had visited from France, according to Paris-based librarian, Edouard Matalon, who was one of those three visitors, Reuters said Matalon was released the same day after questioning.
Vincent Geisser, director of the French Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds at Aix-Marseille University, said “this is an attack on academic freedom.” Geisser confirmed to RFI that his family had set up a support committee to demand his release.
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It’s unclear specifically why Dupont was arrested in a case which might have been about questions he might have posed in his research – similar to the case of Matthew Hedges in Dubai in 2018.
Recently, leading up to the re-election of Saied, the Tunisian president arrested a number of politicians, union leaders and journalists.
A number of Tunisian lawyers link Dupont’s arrest to the PhD he began in 2022, which looks at the socio-economic and life trajectories of those who took part in the social movements of the 2011 revolution that overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was the former President of Tunisia.
Asharq Al-Awsat and agencies, RFI
