Washington, DC: The Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) announced on Thursday that more than 471 former heads of state, scholars, and civil society leaders from over 30 countries have signed an international appeal demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, the 85-year-old Tunisian scholar and former speaker of parliament sentenced in June 2026 to life in prison plus 30 additional years.
The appeal has drawn signatures from an unusually broad and ideologically diverse coalition, including Moncef Marzouki, former President of Tunisia; Abdullah Gül, former President of Turkey; and Mustafa Cerić, former Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina – alongside more than 400 professors, scholars, and experts such as Larry Diamond, Francis Fukuyama, Michael McFaul, John Esposito, and Donald Horowitz, from leading universities and human rights organisations across the United States, Europe, and the Muslim world.
“This is a global chorus of former presidents, scholars, and human rights defenders – people who do not agree on much else – saying with one voice that an 85-year-old man should not die in prison for his political beliefs,” said Radwan A. Masmoudi, Ph.D., President of CSID. “We are calling on the Tunisian government, and on every government that values due process, to act now, before it is too late.”
Ghannouchi is president of Tunisia’s Ennahdha movement and served as speaker of the country’s freely elected parliament from 2019 to 2021, when President Kais Saied ordered the military to shut it down on July 25, 2021. He has been imprisoned since April 2023. His June 2026 conviction followed a closed-door trial that his defence lawyers and international observers say it reflected the absence of an independent judiciary in Tunisia, where courts have operated under executive influence since 2021, a case they describe as political rather than judicial in nature. In April 2026, he was hospitalised after a sharp deterioration in his health.
Signatories are explicit that supporting Ghannouchi’s release does not require agreement with his political views. “Whether one agrees with all of his views is beside the point,” the appeal states. “The proper response to political disagreement in a democracy is debate, elections, and peaceful competition, not imprisonment.”
The appeal also calls on Tunisian authorities to release all political prisoners and restore judicial independence.
CSID has called on governments and international institutions to press Tunisian authorities for Ghannouchi’s immediate release, and invites additional scholars, faith leaders, and civil society leaders to add their names at: freerachedghannouchi.us/petition.
