In the latest escalation of a crackdown on the president’s opponents, a Tunisian court on Thursday ordered opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi to be held before his trial on charges of plotting against state security, his attorney told reporters.
The 81-year-old leader of the Islamist Ennahda party served as speaker of the elected parliament until President Kais Saied took control of the country in 2021 and ordered its dissolution.
Following an eight-hour inquiry by the court, Ghannouchi, who was detained on Monday, was ordered to remain in custody, according to Ghannouchi’s attorney Monia Bouali. The next hearing or any trials have not yet been given a date.
Ennahda criticised the “unjust decision” and said it was made to hide failure amid a crippling economic and financial crisis that is pushing the nation into insolvency.
Targeting a “national symbol” who has fought against authoritarianism for decades, according to that statement, would not help Tunisia’s issues or the opposition.
After the judge’s ruling, Ghannouchi posted on his official Facebook page, saying: “I am optimistic about the future… Tunisia is free.”
According to Ghannouchi’s attorney, the decision to detain him was made in advance as a result of his statements of opinion.
Several prominent political personalities who accused Saied of staging a coup because of his actions to dissolve parliament and govern by decree prior to changing the constitution have been imprisoned by police this year.
Saied has referred to his adversaries as criminals, traitors, and terrorists and has said that they must be dealt with by the state if Tunisia is to be saved from anarchy.
Tuesday saw a prohibition on gatherings by Tunisian authorities at all Ennahda offices, while police locked down the Salvation Front’s headquarters, the largest opposition alliance.
Ennahda claims it worries that the action would result in its banishment.
Ghannouchi has been a significant political force in Tunisia ever since the 2011 revolution, leading his party to take part in many coalition administrations with secular parties.
Over the last year, he has been the subject of many rounds of court questioning about allegations regarding Ennahda’s finances and claims that the party assisted Islamists in travelling to Syria to engage in jihad, all of which he and the party reject.
The arrest of Ghannouchi, the closing of Ennahda’s headquarters, and the prohibition of gatherings by opposition parties, according to the US, marked a worrying escalation.
Ghannouchi was detained, according to a representative of the interior ministry, after making “inciting statements”.
“Imagining Tunisia without this or that side… Tunisia without Ennahda, Tunisia without political Islam, Tunisia without the left, or any other component, is a project for civil war,” Ghannouchi stated in an opposition conference last week.
The powerful figure who spent the 1990s in exile before coming home after the revolution that established democracy in the nation said people who were celebrating what he termed a coup could not be democratic.
