Tunisia-Mehdi Ben Gharbia continues hunger strike for the fourth week

The defence committee of Mehdi Ben Gharbia released a press release this Sunday, November 28, 2021, revealing that Mr Ben Gharbia is continuing his hunger strike, which started on November 5 for the fourth consecutive week. to claim his right to see his five-year-old son, directly, without barriers and regularly, as required by the supreme interest of the child.

The defence committee adds that although the first and only visit during which Mehdi Ben Gharbia was permitted to see his son dates back to October 27, 2021, the general prison and rehabilitation committee continues to refuse him the right to see her son despite the permission of the examining magistrate received since Thursday, November 25, 2021. Therefore, confronted with the total indifference of the general committee of prisons and its emphasis on depriving Mehdi Ben Gharbia of his right, the latter sent two letters from his jail on November 17 to the Minister  Justice and Minister of Women and Family Affairs.

In these correspondences, he holds the two ministers accountable for the harm that could reach his son and for anything that could happen to him by denying him of seeing his father for several weeks, particularly after losing his mother only a few months ago. The defence committee supports its client in his legitimate and essential demands for his right to meet his son periodically.

Nevertheless, he warns the General Committee of Prisons and Rehabilitation, as well as the Minister of Justice and the judicial authorities in charge of his case, as to the permanent degeneration of his health after losing about 15 kg of his weight. The defence committee similarly denounced the political exploitation of the case, and the neglect of the presumption of innocence, emphasising that Mehdi Ben Gharbia reserves the right to prosecute any person involved in this unfair trial and inequitable.