Tunisia’s President Saied Kais, has intensified crackdown on opposition leaders and critics, endangering the society and risks of returning to autocracy, a group of experts, activists, and relatives of those detained have warned.
President of Ennahdha Party, Rached Ghannouchi, who was arrested in April, has been sentenced in absentia after being found guilty of incitement. The Ennahdha party, a self-styled “Muslim democrat” movement, emerged as the largest faction in the first legislative elections following the overthrow of protest-hit Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, amassing 37 percent of the vote.
However, since taken over office in 2021, President Kais Saied, who contested as an independent social conservative, has pursued the Ennahdha officials and his critics. More than 20 dissidents, activists, journalists, and opposition personalities are said to have been imprisoned since February.
Those jailed have been charged with numerous offenses, some of which are related to security, but activists and experts said, the allegations have been fabricated and that Saied is basically hunting his critics with impunity.
Anas Altikriti, the director of the Cordoba Foundation, a think-tank that focuses on Muslim-Western ties, said at a conference in London that, while the “Arab Spring was one of the most transformative moments of this century,” events in Tunisia are “killing off” its last remnants.
Rached Ghannoushi’s daughter, Soumaya, attended the discussion and said, Saied has “devoured” Tunisia’s democracy bit by bit. “Saied feeds the nation a rhetoric of hatred and invests in crisis in order to distract the nation,” Soumaya added. “That’s the difference between having a normal dictator and a populist dictator,” Soumaya continued.
“The only hope for Tunisians today is to cross over to the other side of the Mediterranean, throw themselves in death boats and seek escape at any cost,” Soumaya said. The Ennahdha Party has slammed the “unjust decision” against Ghannoushi and other politicians, including MP Said Ferjani, who has been imprisoned for saying that, steps are being made to cover up economic and financial issues that are driving Tunisia to insolvency.
Seifeddine Ferjani, son of the jailed the politician, said, “There are deeply worrying signs of the way Tunisia operates now, such as using anti-terror squads to arrest liberal dissidents, socialist dissidents.” “I think that Tunisia is a ticking time bomb and the danger is underrepresented,” Seifaddine shared his thoughts.
Several prominent political personalities have chastised President Saied for acting like a coup leader and instituting authority by decree, before amending the constitution. In a message published on his social media handle last month, Ghannouchi said, “We are facing another episode of political targeting by judicial means.”
“We do not have a problem with the judiciary, but we do have a problem with dictatorship. The battle in the country is between democracy and dictatorship, which wants to confiscate the gains of our blessed revolution,” Ghannouchi stated.
Soumaya Ghannouchi confirmed her father was arrested on the 27th night of Ramadan, one of the holiest dates of the Muslim calendar, and that, he is in “good health,” claiming her mother has been able to visit him. “It’s not his first time in jail. He’s been in jail under three dictators so far,” she said.
