Daughter of Tunisian ex-dictator Ben Ali arrested in France

The events relating to the 2011 Tunisian revolution are still emerging as Halima Ben Ali, the daughter of the ex-dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has been arrested in France on September 30th, at the request of the Tunisian authorities, as reported by France 24 via AFP.

The extradition procedure of the youngest daughter of the Tunisian autocrat was furthered on October 1st, as she was presented in front of a French court to confirm her provisional arrest and for the judge to determine whether she should be extradited or released under judicial supervision.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was the president of Tunisia for 23 years before he was toppled in January 2011 after the Tunisian revolution, which famously started the Arab Spring with uprisings and revolutions that shook multiple countries in the MENA region.

Tunis reportedly issued an Interpol red notice against her, and  Samia Maktouf, the lawyer of Halima Ben Ali, revealed that the Tunisian authorities had accused her client of money embezzlement.

Her solicitor blamed Tunisia for leading an unprecedented attack on Ben Ali, qualifying it as a woman hunt. She later added that her client was previously arrested and released in 2018 by Italian authorities, once again at the request of Tunisia.

Mrs. Maktouf defended that Halima Ben Ali was innocent of the accused crimes, adding that she had left Tunisia at the age of 17, while she was still a minor, further arguing that this situation is the North African country’s way of trying to achieve avenge for her father’s crimes by attacking her.

The ex-dictator Ben Ali was forced to flee the country due to the violent protests against poverty and police abuse, which were sparked after Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself by fire. The lawyer feared Halima would be “lynched”, if she were to be extradited to her home country where she had not been since she left with her family on January 14th of 2011.

Almost 15 years have passed since the toppling of the autocratic president, yet it seems he has been replaced by another dictator, Kais Saied.

The current Tunisian autocrat has been strangling the country’s individual freedoms and its democracy, by arresting politicians, lawyers, journalists, activists and critics who have dared to speak up about the current politico-socio-economic situation, under the guise of conspiracy against the state.

In February 2025, the UN human rights office denounced the government’s crackdown on political opposition, which Tunis dismissed saying it was “deeply astonished” by the criticism. France is the latest country to have recognised the abuses of the regime by condemning the unfairness of the trials of Saied’s opposition.

He was also accused of manipulating the October 2024 by changing the eligibility rules, limiting the access of monitoring bodies, and by jailing his opposition. The North African country has been under scrutiny for its racist and murderous policies against migrants, with NGOs calling it “a silent genocide”. The country has been criticised for abandoning Sub-Saharan migrants in the desert, and for even selling some migrants to Libyan gangs.

Peaceful protests have erupted in the country to denounce the policies of Saied, saying he has turned the country into “an open-air prison”. They further denounced that everyone fears being subjected to persecution or “arrest for any reason”, and that prisons are overflowing with the dictator’s opponents.

While the Tunisian authorities are looking for remnants of the old dictatorship, they’re unable to admit that they’ve created the very same environment that once caused the revolution against the previous autocracy.

France 24 via AFP, Maghrebi.org