At 43, Chaïma Issa spent five long months in prison before being released on July 13. Accused of conspiring against state security, banned from traveling and under a ban on “public spaces”, she gave World Africa her first interview with the press since her release from prison. At home in Tunis, surrounded by her sister and her son, the activist opposed to the “coup d’etat” of President Kaïs Saïed, who assumed full powers on July 25, 2021, did not hide her anger.
On the very day of the meeting, August 22, the investigating judge of the anti-terrorism unit had decided to extend the pre-trial detention of his friends and comrades who had been imprisoned for more than six months. Chaïma Issa’s life changed dramatically in February when she was thrown behind bars with seven other opponents, all accused of crimes for which they face the death penalty. She then became the first female political prisoner under the regime of Kaïs Saïed. For Le Monde Afrique, she looks back on these last turbulent months and the fights she intends to continue in favor of democracy.
I am in an in-between. I do not feel free, especially since my comrades are still detained. I also discovered what my loved ones endured in terms of humiliation and aggression, the lies that were said about me, all of this had an impact. I needed time to rest and reunite with my family, including my political family.
Today, I can no longer work, I am also banned from travel and from “public spaces”. This last decision is legally incomprehensible, but it is based on the same logic of deprivation of liberty. When you are in politics, you are aware of the risks you are taking. That of ending up in prison or undergoing restrictions is real in a dictatorial regime. Reason of State has become aggressive and brutal, everything that results from it is of the order of the absurd and the arbitrary.
Since July 25, we have been fighting a person who made a coup. The elected Parliament, the institutions, the Constitution… everything was gone in an instant, only with three figures: a man who carried a populist and demonizing speech, the army who placed a tank in front of the Parliament and the police who responsible for changing the locks of certain institutions. No one denies the fact that we were in a political and health crisis, a power crisis in which Kaïs Saïed has largely participated since his election in 2019. Tunisians certainly needed change, but Kaïs Saïed used undemocratic methods and we can never accept it. Everything he has done since is inadmissible.
When I think of everything we’ve done since 2011 [the revolution and the fall of Ben Ali]. On July 25, 2021, there was no one left. The hysterical behavior of the state resonated with the population. The state has fueled hatred and division, whether against foreigners, with the treatment of sub-Saharan migrants, or among Tunisians.
The balance of power is obviously unequal and we can only fight with our ideas and our vision for the country. We first created the Citizens Against the Coup d’Etat collective in September 2021, then a broader coalition, open to all democratic forces who want to fight against the coup d’etat, under the name of the National Salvation Front. But some parties and organizations are excluded, in particular that of the Ennahda party [from the Islamist matrix]. They claim to defend rights and freedoms but, in reality, they only defend their interests.
Letting go of everything that has been built over the past ten years to attack the Islamists is a serious mistake that has led us to where we are today. Despite my anger, I think we need to reset the counters and have a dialogue. The discourse of demonization is such that democracy is perceived as a defect, while nothing can be done outside this framework, including to deal with the serious economic crisis that we are experiencing.
There are many truths to be reestablished, but above all I want to remind you that Western countries put aside the defense of the democratic process and supported Kais Saïed’s roadmap after July 25. Only the Tunisian democrats denounced this process and spoke of a coup. Justice has also publicly cleared the diplomats whom we are accused of having met, while we are still being prosecuted. It’s totally contradictory.
We are also accused of having weapons, of being terrorists. The irony is that I myself have worked on the de-radicalization processes and find myself in front of the counter-terrorism pole. There, I was able to challenge the investigating judge, remind him that there could be no fair trial and independence of justice when the president himself said he was personally following our case. I was also in emotion, I asked him what more he wanted to know, while he had access to my private life via my phone, including my intimate photos and my love messages… My life was going to be exposed when I had nothing to reproach myself for.
But when this whole affair is made public, the world will also discover that my comrades and I spent months in prison simply for defending our freedoms. We acted publicly to unite the opposition, to try to propose solutions. As Kaïs Saïed preferred to maintain divisions, he threw us in prison.
What did you learn from your time in prison?
Prison is another world. I wasn’t scared but I cried twice. The first when they took off my glasses. That’s when I realized that I no longer had control over my life. The second when I had to undress and was asked to bend down and cough… Now I also want to fight for the rights of prisoners, for their physical and psychological integrity. There is not a single family in Tunisia that does not have a relative in prison. We will not necessarily follow us to fight against the coup, but when it comes to injustices, we can find each other. Jail is not a solution. There, daily life is a struggle, no human rights are respected, the prisoners are dehumanized. It’s part of my struggles now, I promised my fellow inmates that I would make it a priority.
I lived extraordinary moments the day of my release, whether inside, with the prisoners, or outside with all these people who were waiting for me outside. The Kaïs Saïed regime threw us in prison but gained nothing, the Tunisians even less. This situation is absurd and affects us collectively. It can’t last.
