In Tunisia, an anti-government demonstration to demand the release of opponents
Several hundred people demonstrated in Tunis on Tuesday to mark the two years since the coup of President Kaïs Saïed, who has assumed full powers since July 25, 2021, demanding the release of more than 20 opponents and figures imprisoned since February.
A new demonstration against the “authoritarian operation” of power in Tunisia. Several hundred people marched in Tunis on Tuesday, July 25, against the coup of President Kaïs Saïed, who has assumed full powers since July 25, 2021, and demanded the release of more than 20 opponents and personalities imprisoned since February.
“Down with the coup”, “Freedom for all (opponents) jailed”, mainly chanted the protesters gathered in the center of Tunis at the call of the National Salvation Front (FSN), the main opposition coalition which includes the Islamic-conservative Ennahda party, a pet of President Kaïs Saïed.
Braving an unprecedented heat wave in Tunisia (with almost 50 degrees on Monday in Tunis and almost 45 degrees on Tuesday), the protesters, including leaders of the FSN, also shouted their anger at a “judiciary under order”.
For two years, the opposition has regularly organized demonstrations against the Tunisian president’s “repressive policies” since what it calls a “coup” on July 25, 2021, when he froze parliament and fired his prime minister.
This mobilization has not ceased, even after a wave of arrests launched in February, which targeted leading political leaders, including the head of Ennahda and former speaker of the dissolved parliament, Rached Ghannouchi.
“The Road to Oppression”
The majority of those detained on trial for “conspiracy against the security of the state” have been labeled “terrorists” by the president.
The political crisis sparked by Kaïs Saïed’s coup, which was initially supported by many Tunisians, worries Tunisian and international NGOs, who lament a decline in freedoms.
“Since the president’s assumption of power, the authorities have continued on the path of repression, imprisoning dozens of political opponents and critics of the regime, disregarding the independence of the judiciary (and) removing institutional guarantees regarding human rights,” Amnesty International condemned in a report on Monday.
According to the NGO, which believes the charges against the detained personalities are “dummy”, “the president deprived Tunisians of the basic rights they had won with great struggle (during the 2011 democratic revolution) and fueled a climate of repression and impunity”.
Several journalists and judges are also subject to lawsuits. Tunisia is also rocked by a deep financial crisis and in search of foreign aid.
AFP
