Tunisia Arrests Law Makers Critical Of President Saied

The post of prime minister is still vacant, and MPs critical of the president have been arrested. A week after Kais Saied took power in Tunisia, fears of an authoritarian drift prompted some observers to express their concern on Sunday, and this is according to the media.

According to some reports, Mr. Saied granted himself full powers on July 25 and suspended parliament, saying he wanted to “save” the small Maghreb country. In establishing the exceptional regime, denounced by his opponents in the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party as a “coup d’état”, Mr. Saied also lifted the parliamentary immunity of deputies. In this context, several arrests have caused controversy in the last three days. Two deputies of the Islamo-nationalist movement Al-Karama, an ultraconservative party allied to Ennahdha, were arrested on Saturday night. Maher Zid and Mohamed Affes are in custody as part of an “investigation by the military justice”, as explained on social media by the leader of Al-Karama, Seifeddine Makhlouf. According to the lawyer, who is very hostile to President Saied, he and the two deputies are being prosecuted in a case related to an altercation that occurred in March at the airport in Tunis. They are suspected of having insulted border police officers who had forbidden a woman to travel.