French PhD student Victor Dupont has been detained in Tunisia on breach of state security charges for at least 12 days, it was announced this week. His university has denounced the arrest as an attack on fundamental liberties.
"This is an attack on academic freedom," Vincent Geisser, director of the French Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds at Aix-Marseille University (Iremam), told press agencies.
Dupont, 27, was arrested on 19 October at his home in a suburb of Tunis.
His detention only came to light this week, his supporters having tried to negotiate his release out of the public eye.
His parents travelled to Tunis a few days ago to discuss the case with France's ambassador, according to media reports.
Geisser confirmed to RFI that the family had now set up a support committee to demand his release.
Dupont was in Tunisia to conduct sociological research on the country's 2011 protests.
One of his friends, Edouard Matalon, a librarian visiting from Paris, was also arrested but released the same day after questioning.
According to Matalon, another of their friends, who has dual French-Tunisian nationality, also remains in custody.
Neither Tunisian or French authorities were immediately available for comment.
'Exceptional' measures
After being detained, Dupont was "taken to an interrogation centre, placed in custody, and the same day brought before a military judge", Geisser said in a press release, calling the last measure "exceptional" for a French student.
Dupont, who started his PhD in 2022, hoped his interviews would provide material for a paper on the social and career paths of "people who might have been active during the 2011 revolution" that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, according to his supervisor.
"It is not a political topic linked to dissidents or opponents or a security topic, but a typical sociology topic," Geisser added, calling for his student to be released.
Civil liberties eroded
Dupont's arrest comes against a backdrop of worsening civil liberties in Tunisia, which recently voted in a presidential election marred by a crackdown on the opposition, independent activists and journalists.
Fear and resignation ahead of Tunisia's 'lopsided' presidential polls
President Kais Saied was re-elected with more than 90 percent of votes, three years after he made a sweeping power grab.
Rights groups fear Saied will tighten his grip on Tunisia, considered the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 Arab Spring protests.
Amnesty International has documented a significant rollback of human rights in the country, especially in the last couple of years.
(with newswires)
