These arrests follow the thread launched this weekend against opponents, magistrates and an influential businessman.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Noureddine Bhiri, the leader of the Islamo-conservative Tunisian party Ennahdha, arrested on Monday, February 13, according to political training. Mr. Bhiri was “arrested and taken to an unknown place” during a police descent, a party spokesman for the France-Presse, Abdelfattah Taghouti. A hundred agents participated in this operation which took place at his home, in Tunis.
This former Minister of Justice, sixty-four had already been detained for more than two months in early 2022, five months after the coup of President Kaïs Saïed who had suspended the parliament controlled by Ennahdha, his bane.
He had ceased to eat as soon as his arrest, before agreeing to be infused in a hospital where he had been transferred to detention. Despite his release, Mr. Bhiri was still the subject of an investigation for suspicions of “terrorism”, according to the authorities.
vague of arrests
Tunisian police also challenged Noureddine Boutar, the director general of private radio on Monday evening fm mosaic , very listened to in Tunisia. “A security brigade has searched the home of the Director General of Radio Mosaic FM, Noureddine Boutar before stopping it. His family was not informed of Reasons arrest “, indicates the radio.
The Tunisian police had already arrested several people on Saturday, including the businessman Kamel Eltaïef, very influential in political circles, Abdelhamid Jelassi, ex-Ennahdha, the political activist Khayam Turki, and two former magistrates. According to local media, those arrested this weekend are suspected “of conspiracy against state security”.
Man in the shadows, Mr. Eltaïef, sixty-eight, is seen by many Tunisians as one of the symbols of corruption since the years of Ben Ali. Lobbyist with solid diplomatic connections, he made and defeated careers in the police and on the political scene.
Since the coup de force of President Saïed, several politicians have been the subject of legal proceedings denounced by the opposition as settling of accounts.
The opposition accuses Mr. Saïed of establishing an authoritarian regime repressing freedoms and threatening democracy in Tunisia, where the first revolt of the Arab Spring had overthrew in 2011 the dictatorship of Ben Ali.