By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Over 300 protesters from opposition parties on Sunday took to the streets, waving Tunisian flags and appealed to the country’s president, Kais Saied to release his critics who have locked up in detention facilities.
Security forces in the North African country have since early February arrested more than 20 political opponents and personalities including politicians, former ministers, businessmen, trade unionists and journalists critical of the president.
At the rally organised by the main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, protesters carried placards with the images of detainees.
Local and international rights groups have criticised the arrest and detention of critics of the president.
One of the opposition leaders and an official with the Al-Joumhouri (Republican) party, Samir Ben Amor called for a “national dialogue in order to draw up a roadmap to save Tunisia and return to the democratic path”.
Saied had single-handedly seized power since he dissolved parliament and sacked Tunisia’s government in July 2021.
He claims those arrested were “terrorists” involved in a “conspiracy against state security”.
Opponents accuse him of reinstating autocratic rule in the North African country which seemed to be the sole democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings in the Mena region in 2011 during the reign of Ben Ali
Amnesty International last month called on authorities to release the detainees arrested on “unfounded accusations”.
Amidst mounting debt and cost of living crisis, Saied last week rejected International Monetary Fund (IMF’s) bailout, which he described as “diktats” that will further escalate poverty.
