Tunisian police have arrested opponent Jawhar Ben Mbarek, one of President Kaïs Saïed’s most vocal critics, the latest arrest since the crackdown launched in political circles in early February, his family said on Friday 24 February. Mr. Ben Mbarek, 55, “was arrested late at night and we have not yet had access to the arrest file,” his sister, lawyer Dalila Msaddek, told AFP. The police had held Mr. Ben Mbarek’s father, Ezzeddine Hezgui, also an opponent, for a few hours on Thursday.
Leader of the “Citizens Against the Coup” movement, Mr. Ben Mbarek is also one of the main leaders of the National Salvation Front (FSN), the main opposition coalition, which emerged after Mr. Saïed assumed full powers in Tunisia, shaking the young democracy that emerged from the first revolt of the “Arab Spring” in 2011. A figure of the Tunisian left, Mr. Ben Mbarek is a specialist in constitutional law and a former adviser to the presidency of the government.
Around 20 political, media and business figures have been arrested in Tunisia since early February in a campaign described by Amnesty International as a “politically motivated witch hunt”. Mr. Saïed called those arrested “terrorists” and claimed that they were involved in a “conspiracy against state security”.
