The Tunisian authorities on Tuesday closed the offices of the Islamo-conservative movement Ennahdha throughout the country, the day after the arrest of its leader, Rached Ghannouchi, arousing a reaction of strong “concern” from the European Union.
“A police force came to the party’s main headquarters (in Tunis) and ordered everyone inside to get out before closing it,” one of the leaders of the party told AFP. Ennahdha, Riadh Chaibi.
“The police have also closed other party offices across the country and banned all meetings in these premises,” he added. This measure was taken the day after the arrest of the leader of the party, Rached Ghannouchi, at his home in Tunis.
In addition, the leader of the National Salvation Front (FSN), the main opposition coalition of which Ennahdha is a member, said that the police on Tuesday banned a press conference that his group was about to hold to react to the arrest. by Mr. Ghannouchi.
“The police prevented the holding of the press conference and deployed barriers in front of the party headquarters,” Ahmed Nejib Chebbi told AFP.
According to a circular from the Ministry of the Interior reproduced by the media, meetings in the offices of Ennahdha throughout the territory and those of the FSN in the Greater Tunis region were prohibited from Tuesday under the state of emergency in force in the country.
Without mentioning the arrest of Mr. Ghannouchi, President Kais Saied, speaking at a ceremony honoring the security services, called on justice to “assume its role in this phase that the country is going through”. “We are waging a merciless war against those who seek to undermine the state and its institutions,” he added.
The EU, a key partner of Tunisia, said it was following “with great concern the latest developments” in the country, citing the arrest of Mr. Ghannouchi and the closure of his party’s premises.
Brussels recalled “the importance of respecting the rights of the defense as well as the right to a fair trial” and underlined, with regard to Ennahdha, “the fundamental principle of political pluralism”.
For its part, France deplored an arrest which “is part of a worrying wave of arrests”, recalling its “attachment to freedom of expression and respect for the rule of law”. Paris also “called on the Tunisian authorities to ensure respect for the independence of justice and the rights of the defense”.
Mr Ghannouchi, 81, who led the dissolved parliament, is the most prominent opponent to be arrested since the coup by President Saied, who seized full power in July 2021.
His arrest comes after statements reported by the media, in which Mr. Ghannouchi said this weekend that Tunisia would be threatened with a “civil war” if political Islam, from which his party originated, was eliminated there.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the spokesman for the National Guard said that these statements are “crimes aimed at changing the state system and inciting chaos and inciting citizens to kill each other”.
According to him, in addition to Mr. Ghannouchi, four other people belonging to Ennahdha were arrested as part of this investigation.
Since the beginning of February, the authorities have imprisoned more than 20 opponents and personalities including ex-ministers, businessmen and the owner of the most listened to radio station in the country, Mosaïque FM.
President Saied, accused by the opposition of authoritarian drift, described those arrested as “terrorists”, claiming that they were involved in a “conspiracy against state security”.
After his coup, Mr. Saied had the Constitution revised to establish an ultra-presidentialist system at the expense of Parliament, which no longer has any real powers, unlike the dissolved Assembly dominated by Ennahdha.
04/18/2023 23:40:45 – Tunis (AFP) – © 2023 AFP