Prisons and detention
Eight Tunisian prisons give a detainee no more than 2 square metres, the state is answering the overcrowding with new buildings and pardons, and the Tunisian League for Human Rights, which published that figure, says it is no longer let in.
A Tunisian League for Human Rights report on conditions between 2022 and 2025, built on prison visits, found occupancy generally above 150 percent, and 1,522 detainees for 850 places at Mahdia civil prison. Kapitalis, which carries those figures, says some prisons are above 200 percent. In eight prisons the space per detainee is no more than 2 square metres, against an international minimum of 4, according to a League report published in 2025 and cited by Nawaat.
Kapitalis says the prison population rose by about 10,000 in two years, from roughly 23,000 in 2022 to 33,000, and gives the World Prison Brief's rate of 267 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. Chadi Trifi of the League put the number above 60,000 in August 2026, nearly twice that. Neither he nor the brief says why the two counts differ. The last time the brief counted people awaiting trial, more than half of those held had not been sentenced: 12,881 in 2021, 54.9 percent, and it gives no later share.
The justice ministry's 2026 investment programme provides for a new prison at Béja, a women's complex at Monastir, an extension of Borj Erroumi, a hospital unit at La Rabta and 446 prison corporals. Kapitalis says the same projects include wider use of alternative sentences and electronic tags. The largest of the year's three pardon decrees came on 23 July 2026, 2,439 prisoners pardoned for Republic Day and 490 conditional releases, 2,929 people on Webdo's count. Webdo describes the pardon as freeing convicted prisoners.
Nawaat reported on 5 August 2026 that three families blamed prison conditions for the deaths of relatives within days, two at Gabès civil prison and one at Borj El Amri. In the cells, Nawaat wrote, the heat was nearing 50 degrees. One family puts its relative's death on 23 July, and the League's Ben Arous section called the deaths suspicious on 28 July, after hearing the families. Hamza Dridi, one of the dead, was 33 and had been held a year and eight months on a cannabis case without trial.
On 21 July 2026 the League's Sousse section said one of its delegations had been stopped at Messadine civil prison, the prison administration requiring authorisation from the justice ministry. The League calls that requirement a breach of the memorandum of understanding governing its visits, and Nawaat writes that Messadine follows months of restrictions the League has denounced. On 28 July the prisons authority denied in a communiqué that detainees' relatives and lawyers were being refused visits.
”We know these arrangements exist. But how far do they work against the heatwave? We do not know, since the justice ministry barred us from visiting prisons”
The numbers
What the comparison shows
Where they agree
All three voices accept that the prisons hold more people than they have places for. The count of 33,000 against 17,000 official places comes from the torture prevention body itself. The prisons authority is adding beds, and the League calls July's 2,929 releases a drop in the ocean.
Where they split
The prisons authority's answer is capacity: 1,000 beds and telephone booths, announced in August 2025. The torture prevention body traces part of the crowding to what happens before the prison gate, to slow procedures and heavy recourse to detention, which no new building reaches. Who gets out depends on which answer wins. July's pardon freed convicted prisoners, on Webdo's account, while the World Prison Brief last counted more than half the prison population as awaiting trial.
What nobody is saying
The World Prison Brief's 54.9 percent is a 2021 reading, while the total of 33,000 beside it is from May 2025, and it gives no later share. That is the share the pardons cannot reach, because a pardon frees people who have been sentenced. Kapitalis writes that without new comprehensive statistics, the effect of the 2026 measures on real overcrowding cannot yet be measured.
Who says what
The 33,000 total the World Prison Brief publishes comes from Jarray's body. His explanation of the rise, as Kapitalis reports it, is not about buildings but about the courts.
”cette augmentation est également liée à la lenteur des procédures judiciaires et au recours massif à la détention”this increase is also linked to the slowness of judicial procedures and to the massive recourse to detention
The prisons authority says that against the heatwave it maintains its generators and keeps emergency water tankers for any break in supply. Trifi does not dispute that those arrangements exist; he says the League has no way to see whether they work, so it is questioning families instead and demanding an urgent, independent and transparent inquiry into the deaths. He puts the prison population above 60,000 and calls July's 2,929 releases a drop in the ocean.
”On sait que ces dispositions existent. Mais à quel point fonctionnent-elles face à la canicule ? Nous l’ignorons, depuis que le ministère de la Justice nous a interdit la visite des établissements pénitentiaires”We know these arrangements exist. But how far do they work against the heatwave? We do not know, since the justice ministry barred us from visiting prisons
In August 2025 Ben Hassen announced on Jawhara FM 1,000 extra beds and telephone booths for supervised calls home, after reports, Webdo says, of detainees sleeping on the floor or in the toilets for lack of space. That was a year before this summer's deaths and the dispute over access, and it answers neither: the remedy on offer is places to be added rather than admissions to be reduced.
Our coverage
- Tunisia's prison authority denies that detainees' health is deteriorating. Its figures stop at the end of June.Sunday, 23 August 2026
- Tunisia's jailed opposition leaders: one stable, one still fragileSaturday, 22 August 2026
- Tunisia's prison authority publishes health figures, threatens legal action against criticsSaturday, 22 August 2026
- Sumud Flotilla detainee begins hunger strike in Tunis-area prisonWednesday, 19 August 2026
- A 78-year-old Italian ex-soldier with an intelligence past dies with no explanation in Mornag prisonTuesday, 18 August 2026
- An appeal court confirms seven months in prison for a Palestine solidarity activistSaturday, 15 August 2026
- Ghannouchi suspends his hunger strike, Ennahdha demands his releaseWednesday, 12 August 2026
- Two counts of Tunisia's prisoners, nearly double apart, and the league that would check is barredWednesday, 12 August 2026
- Ghannouchi's defence says he has been on hunger strike since 6 AugustMonday, 10 August 2026
- Sihem Bensedrine questioned by the financial brigade and releasedSaturday, 8 August 2026
- Rights group counts 33,000 prisoners for 17,000 places in Tunisian jailsSunday, 2 August 2026
- Saied pardons 2,439 prisoners before Republic Day, including his 2024 election rivalSaturday, 25 July 2026
- Saïed pardons 2,439 prisoners for Republic Day; Zammel and Jary reported freedFriday, 24 July 2026
- Human rights league says its delegation was again turned away from Messadine prisonWednesday, 22 July 2026