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Background

Tunisia's associations and the law that lets a judge suspend them

Human Rights Watch says the Tunisian authorities have misused the 2011 law on associations to suspend them, and lists the Tunisian League for Human Rights among the suspended. Under that law only a judge may order a suspension, and Human Rights Watch says the judiciary has been under executive control since 2022. The judges' own association, writing separately on the same day, says the justice minister has no legal basis for suspending individual judges from duty.

Human Rights Watch counts at least 20 Tunisian associations whose activities a court has suspended and at least 47 people from non-governmental groups prosecuted since 2024, at least 14 of them sent to prison. It says the authorities misused Decree-Law 88, the 2011 law that freed associations from asking permission to exist or to take money from abroad. Al Khatt, which publishes the investigative site Inkyfada, was suspended over a single foreign transfer it says it declared on time.
Tunisia's associations and the law that lets a judge suspend them

Human Rights Watch published a 49-page report on 2 September 2026, "We Are Living on Borrowed Time": Repression of Civil Society in Tunisia. It counts at least 47 people from non-governmental groups prosecuted since 2024, at least 14 of them convicted and sent to prison after trials in 2025 and 2026. At least 10 were held before trial beyond the fourteen months Tunisian law allows. The charges against them came under the 2015 counterterrorism and money-laundering law and the laws against helping foreigners without papers, the report says.

Decree-Law 88, passed in September 2011, let an association gain legal standing by notifying the authorities. It could take foreign funding without asking the government, provided it published the details within one month. Article 45 leaves suspension and dissolution to a judge: a warning with 30 days to fix the alleged breach, a 30-day suspension ordered by the Tunis court at the government's request, then dissolution if the breach stands. Warnings sent in 2024 named the articles allegedly breached and nothing more, lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

The report identifies at least 20 associations suspended in two runs, July to October 2025 and April to May 2026, among them the Tunisian League for Human Rights and the anti-racism association Mnemty. Three of them say they never got the first warning. Al Khatt, which publishes the investigative site Inkyfada, was suspended for 30 days in October 2025 over a foreign wire transfer it was said not to have declared. Al Khatt says it declared the transfer on time.

Lawyers who helped 18 associations appeal told Human Rights Watch that every appeal was rejected, which leaves those associations open to dissolution. At least two are already facing dissolution, the report says: Mnemty and Al Khatt. The state's litigation officer asked the Tunis court of first instance to dissolve Mnemty, and Kapitalis reported on 29 July 2026 that the interim-relief chamber had put the request off to 24 August. What the court decided that day has not been reported.

The judge who orders a suspension sits in a judiciary the executive has controlled since 2022, Human Rights Watch says. On 2 September 2026 the Association of Tunisian Magistrates said the justice minister's suspensions of individual judges are void for want of a legal basis. Those judges lost their pay with no end date and were never told what they were accused of. The next day the League, itself on the suspended list, joined the UGTT and the bar association in a joint coordination framework for Tunisia and Tunisians.

”The authorities are abusing every tool at their disposal to close the space for civil society in Tunisia”
Bassam KhawajaDeputy Middle East and North Africa director, Human Rights Watch

The numbers

What Human Rights Watch counted
47+ prosecuted
At least 47 people connected to non-governmental groups prosecuted since 2024, at least 14 convicted and sentenced to prison after trials in 2025 and 2026, at least 20 associations suspended, and at least 10 people held in pre-trial detention beyond the legal limit of fourteen months.
Human Rights Watch
Which associations the report names as suspended
The report's table of associations targeted with suspensions lists the Tunisian League for Human Rights, Mnemty, the International Commission of Jurists, the World Organization Against Torture, Avocats Sans Frontieres, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, Aswat Nissa, the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, Al Khatt, the Nawaat Journalists' Association and I Watch, among others. Human Rights Watch says the exact number cannot be established without official data. A group of lawyers who helped 18 associations appeal their suspensions told Human Rights Watch that all 18 appeals were rejected. Human Rights Watch's press release of the same day puts the number of associations whose appeals were dismissed at about 30.
Human Rights Watch
The dissolution case against Mnemty
8 years
Brought by the state's litigation officer before the interim-relief chamber of the Tunis court of first instance, which Kapitalis reported on 29 July 2026 had put it off to 24 August. What the court decided that day has not been reported. The association's president, Saadia Mosbah, was sentenced to eight years in prison for financial offences and illicit enrichment, a sentence upheld on appeal on 23 June 2026. She rejects the charges.
Kapitalis
The joint framework, and who is not in it
3 of 4
Announced on 3 September 2026 by the UGTT, the national bar association and the Tunisian League for Human Rights, and signed by Slaheddine Selmi, Boubaker Ben Thabet and Bassem Trifi. The three were part of the National Dialogue Quartet that shared the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. The fourth member, the employers' union Utica, is not a signatory, and Kapitalis writes that it is not known whether Utica was approached and refused to join.
Kapitalis
The judges' objection
The Association of Tunisian Magistrates said on 2 September 2026 that the justice minister's decisions to suspend magistrates, without pay and with no end date, are void because no legal basis authorises her to take them. It says the executive imposed a vacuum in the judiciary and used it to suspend judges with no disciplinary referral and no account of the charges, and it demands that the decisions be annulled, the judges reinstated and their pay restored.
Kapitalis
The bill that would replace Decree-Law 88
Ten parliamentarians submitted a bill on associations in October 2023 and an amended version on 30 March 2026. Human Rights Watch says it would let a department under the prime minister's office refuse a new group the right to operate within a month of registering, require national associations to obtain that office's prior approval before taking foreign funding or face immediate suspension or dissolution, and let the prime minister's office dissolve any group it suspects of terrorism with no judicial review. The authorities said again in 2025 that they want to replace or amend the decree-law, and Human Rights Watch says a further bill is being drafted, citing diplomatic sources.
Human Rights Watch

What the comparison shows

Where they agree

Three interventions landed within two days. Human Rights Watch published its report on 2 September 2026 and the Association of Tunisian Magistrates issued its statement the same day. The joint framework followed on 3 September. Each describes a course of conduct rather than a single decision: mass suspensions in the report, repeated suspension decisions against judges in the statement, and in the framework a list of failures running from the courts to the water supply.

Where they split

Human Rights Watch asks the international community, including the European Union and its member states, to press the Tunisian authorities in public and in private. The three national organisations went the other way: their framework is for Tunisia and Tunisians, no foreign body is in it, and they put the way out in a full review of the government's own choices. The magistrates' association addresses neither audience, and asks the executive itself to annul the suspensions of judges, reinstate them and pay them again.

What nobody is saying

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Directorate General for Associations, to parliament, to the justice ministry and to the finance ministry on 21 July 2026 asking for more information, and says it got no answer. Three associations told it they answered their warning with every document requested, were suspended anyway, and were never told what they had failed to correct. The organisation's own two figures do not close either: it counts at least 20 suspensions and reports appeals dismissed for about 30 associations. Kapitalis writes that it is not known whether Utica, the fourth body in the 2015 Nobel quartet, was asked to sign the framework and refused.

Who says what

Bassam Khawaja, Deputy Middle East and North Africa director, Human Rights Watch

Says civil society groups hold power to account, deliver essential services and defend people's rights, and that by dismantling their space the authorities are ensuring nobody is left to hold them accountable. Wants the authorities to end their crackdown on civil society at once, and asks the international community to act urgently to preserve what remains of civic space.

”The authorities are abusing every tool at their disposal to close the space for civil society in Tunisia”The authorities are abusing every tool at their disposal to close the space for civil society in Tunisia
Source: Human Rights Watch · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
UGTT, the national bar association and the Tunisian League for Human Rights, The three signatories of the joint coordination framework of 3 September 2026

Put the crisis down to economic, social and political choices they say have failed, and list together the courts, the prisons, the press and the shortages of water, power and medicine. They say the way out is a full review of those choices and a real process of dialogue.

”La Tunisie ne peut être gouvernée selon une logique de déni, de silence ou de voix unique”Tunisia cannot be governed by a logic of denial, of silence or of a single voice
Source: Kapitalis · Thursday, 3 September 2026
Association of Tunisian Magistrates, The professional association of Tunisian judges

Argues on competence and procedure rather than on conduct: the minister has no legal basis for the suspensions, and they came with no referral to the disciplinary council and no statement of what the judges were accused of. The association also asks the executive to end its grip on the judiciary, to let the Supreme Judicial Council resume work and to set up the constitutional court.

”Les décisions prises par la ministre de la Justice de suspendre les magistrats sont nulles, faute de fondement juridique l'y autorisant”The decisions taken by the justice minister to suspend magistrates are void, for want of any legal basis authorising her to take them
Source: Kapitalis · Wednesday, 2 September 2026 · The association published its statement in Arabic. Kapitalis prints the French version and marks it « traduit de l'arabe ». The Arabic line here is the association's own wording, as carried on 2 September 2026 by Kashf Media.

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