Leading Tunisian opposition politician Rached Ghannouchi was arrested Monday evening and taken to an unknown location. According to a police officer, Ghannouchi has been summoned for questioning and is under investigation for “inflammatory remarks”.
The politician is the leader of the country’s largest party, the Islamist Ennahda. He was arrested Monday evening and his house was searched. Ghannouchi, 81, was a political prisoner in the 1980s and went into exile in the 1990s. During the revolution in Tunisia (2011) he returned to his homeland. Under his leadership, the party moved to the political center and joined various governing coalitions. After the 2019 elections, he eventually became Speaker of Parliament.
Wave of arrests of opposition members
With his arrest, the wave of arrests of opposition members has reached a new peak. The driving force is President Kais Saied, who stripped parliament in 2021 and replaced the government with ministers of his choice. In addition, he has increased the powers of the president, giving him almost all power.
His opponents fear that Saied wants to turn the last democratic state in North Africa into an autocracy. This would reverse the democratic gains of the Arab Spring revolution that began in Tunisia.
Source: Krone
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