Tunisian authorities escalate pre-election crackdown and arrest Islamists en masse
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Dozens of members of Tunisia’s largest opposition party were arrested this week ahead of the formal start of campaign season for the country’s presidential election, officials from the party said Friday.
Ennahda, the Islamist party that rose to power in the aftermath of the country’s Arab Spring, said Friday that tallies collected by its local branches suggested at least 80 men and women from the party had been apprehended as part of a countrywide sweep.
In a statement, Ennahda called the arrests “an unprecedented campaign of raids and violations of the most basic rights guaranteed by law.”
Former Minister of Youth and Sports Ahmed Gaaloul, a member of the party’s executive committee and advisor to its imprisoned leader Rached Ghannouchi, said the party had counted at least 80 arrests and was in the process of checking at least 108 total. The arrests included high-ranking party officials and had continued through Friday afternoon. Among them were Mohamed Guelwi, a member of the party’s executive committee, and Mohamed Ali Boukhatim, a regional party leader from Ben Arous, a suburb of Tunis.
The mass arrests are the latest to mar an already turbulent election season in Tunisia.
With political apathy rampant and the country’s most prominent opposition figures in prison, President Kais Saied has long been expected to win a second term without significant challenge. But the past few months have seen major upheaval nonetheless. Saied has sacked the majority of his cabinet and authorities have arrested more of his potential opponents. The country’s election authority made up of members he appointed has defied court orders to keep certain challengers off of the October 6 ballot. Campaign season formally begins on Saturday.
Those moves came after months of cascading arrests of journalists, lawyers and leading civil society figures, including many critics of the president charged under a controversial anti-fake news law that human rights groups say has been increasingly used to quash criticism.
Ennahda is still in the process of confirming the nature of each of the arrests but many of those apprehended this week were previously facing charges, Gaaloul said. Most of those apprehended await charges and have yet to see their attorneys.
The arrested included many senior members of the party involved in Tunisia’s transitional justice process, which includes Ennahda members who were tortured in the years before President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali became the first Arab dictator toppled in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Tunisia’s globally acclaimed transitional justice process is a decade-old initiative designed to help victims who suffered at the hands of the government.
Ennahda is no stranger to having party members arrested. Ghannouchi, the party’s 83-year-old leader, has been in prison since April 2023. Multiple high-ranking officials, including members of its shura council and executive committee have also been arrested over the past year. This week’s arrests are the latest since authorities arrested party secretary general Lajmi Lourimi two months ago. Though the party has for more than three years decried arrests, detentions and legal proceedings against its members, Gaaloul said it had not previously seen arrests on a scale similar to this week.
The arrests came as hundreds of Tunisians protested in the North African nation’s capital, decrying the emergence of what they called a police state ahead of the Oct. 6 election. They were roundly condemned by other parties.
“These arrests come as a sign of further narrowing and deviation of the electoral process aiming at spreading fear and emptying the upcoming election of any chance for a real democratic competition,” Work and Accomplishment, a party led by former Ennahda member Abdellatif Mekki, said in a statement on Friday.
Mekki, who served as Tunisia’s Health Minister from 2011 to 2014, was also arrested in July on murder charges that his attorneys decried as politically motivated. Tunisia’s election authority has said it will defy an administrative court order and keep him off of next month’s ballot.
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Metz reported from Rabat, Morocco.
Sam Metz And Massinissa Benlakehal, The Associated Press
Tunisians took to the streets to protest the rising authoritarianism that has accompanied the run up to next month's presidential elections.
The New Arab Staff & Agencies
14 September, 2024
Tunisians protested against the regime of Kais Saied in front of the interior ministry [Getty]
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Tunisians are expected to take to the streets on Friday to denounce the tumult that’s plagued the country's upcoming election, with candidates arrested, kicked off the ballot or banned from politics for life.
The newly-formed “Tunisian Network for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms” hopes to draw attention to what it has called a surge in authoritarianism.
“Protesting this Friday is a reaction to the violation of rights and freedoms we’re seeing in Tunisia today. The other reason is seeing some citizens being deprived of their right to run in the presidential vote,” said Mohieddine Lagha, Secretary-General of the Tunisian League for Human Rights.
The North African country’s Independent High Authority for Elections has sparred with judges over which candidates will be allowed to appear on the ballot in the 6 October election.
The commission’s detractors have accused it of lacking independence and acting on behalf of President Kais Saied, who appoints its members.
The commission has rejected organizations that have applied to be election observers, and it has said it will not add three candidates to the ballot who won court appeals challenging the authority’s earlier rejections.
That includes former health minister Abdellatif Mekki , a former member of the Islamist movement Ennahda now running with his own party, Work and Accomplishment. Mekki was arrested in July on charges his attorneys said were political and banned from politics for life.
A court ordered the election authority to put him on the ballot last month, and his candidacy was reinstated for a second time earlier this week. ISIE dismissed the first court’s ruling and has not commented on the most recent one.
“We called for a large participation of the population in this protest as we’re hoping to pressure for a massive mobilization,” Ahmed Neffati, Mekki’s campaign manager, told The Associated Press.
“Tunisians won’t let go of their right for a free and democratic election,” he added.
Despite expectations of a barely-contested vote, Saied has upended Tunisian politics in recent months. Last month he sacked the majority of his cabinet, and his critics decried a wave of arrests and gag orders on leading opposition figures as politically driven.
The International Crisis Group last week said Tunisia was in a “deteriorating situation," and Human Rights Watch called on the election commission to reinstate the candidates.
“Holding elections amid such repression makes a mockery of Tunisians’ right to participate in free and fair elections,” said Bassam Khawaja, the group’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director.
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