Imprisoned Tunisian Opposition Leader Ghannouchi Rushed to Hospital

Author: Vera Rousseff

May 6, 2026

HRRC calls on the Tunisian government under President Kais Saied to end its repressive crackdown on political dissent in the country. The arbitrary arrest and detention of opposition figures has contributed to an erosion of democracy and human rights in Tunisia, as demonstrated by the imprisonment of Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi. We emphasize that Ghannouchi must be granted the right to a fair trial and provided adequate medical care following his recent hospitalization.

Ennahda party leader Rached Ghannouchi in Tunis, Tunisia, in 2022. [Image credit: Jihed Abidellaoui/Reuters]

On Thursday, April 30, 2026, Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi was urgently transferred from prison to a hospital after suffering a sudden deterioration in his health. The 84-year-old politician has been imprisoned since April 2023 in what human rights groups have described as a politically motivated crackdown on opposition groups by the current Tunisian government. International groups and opposition supporters have called for the release of Ghannouchi and other politicians, journalists, and opposition figures who have been arbitrarily detained by the Tunisian authorities.

Ghannouchi is the co-founder and president of Tunisia’s Ennahda party, often described as a moderate Islamist party that emerged as a leading political force following the 2011 Tunisian Revolution, also known as the Jasmine Revolution. Many analysts initially regarded Tunisia as the only success story to come out of the Arab Spring, with Ennahda playing an important role in the country’s emergence as a democracy. 

However, after several years of economic challenges and growing public disillusionment with the country’s post-revolution political system, Tunisians democratically elected populist leader Kais Saied as president in 2019. Two years later, Saied expanded his power by dismissing the prime minister and suspending the parliament. In 2022, he further strengthened his political control by dissolving the parliament and changing the constitution to remove checks on presidential power.

Over the past several years, international rights groups and critics of Saied have expressed serious concern over the deterioration of democracy and human rights in Tunisia. Tunisian authorities have increasingly cracked down on political dissent, arbitrarily arresting and detaining opposition figures and individuals accused of criticizing the government, including Ghannouchi and other members of Ennahda.

“President Kais Saied's government has returned the country to an era of political prisoners, robbing Tunisians of hard-won civil liberties,” Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a news release for the organization.

Since his arrest on April 17, 2023, Ghannouchi’s total prison term has increased to 56 years. In November 2025, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Ghannouchi’s arrest was illegitimate and politically motivated, and that he was denied the right to a fair trial. The Working Group has called for his immediate release.

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Glossary

• Arab Spring: wave of pro-democracy protests and uprisings that took place in the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010 and 2011, challenging some of the region’s entrenched authoritarian regimes.

• Arbitrary detention: when an individual is arrested or held without proper legal justification, resulting in a denial of due process. 

• Civil liberty: freedom from arbitrary interference in one's speech or actions by other individuals or by the government especially as constitutionally guaranteed 

• Constitution: the basic principles and laws of a nation, state, or social group that determine the powers and duties of the government and guarantee certain rights to the people in it.

• Crackdown: an action by an authority to stop something.

• Detention: the state of being detained.

• Disillusionment: the state or process of being disillusioned (having lost faith or trust in something formerly regarded as good or valuable).

• Dissent: political opposition to a government or its policies.

• Fair trial: a legal process designed to ensure that individuals accused of crimes are treated justly and afforded essential protections.

• Islamist: relating to Islam, or to a strong belief that Islam should influence political systems.

• Opposition: a political party opposing and prepared to replace the party in power.

• Parliament: in some countries, the group of (usually) elected politicians or other people who make the laws for their country.

• Populist: someone who tries to be popular with ordinary people and to represent their ideas and opinions.

• Repressive: controlling what people do, especially by using force.