According to the political group and the media, a leader of Tunisia’s islamo-conservative Ennahdha party and the head of a private radio station were both detained on Monday night.
The arrests are a result of a crackdown that the Tunisian security services undertook this past weekend, which also resulted in the detention of political activists, former judges, and a powerful businessman.
During a police search involving 100 agents at his residence in Tunis, the 64-year-old Ennahdha leader Noureddine Bhiri was detained and “removed to an unknown destination,” according to Ennahdha spokesman Abdelfattah Taghouti to AFP.
Early in 2022, five months after President Kais Saied’s revolution, the former justice minister had already spent more than two months in detention. Saied had suspended the parliament, which was run by his archrival Ennahdha, and has since tried to discredit him.
Before agreeing to be infused at a hospital where he had been transferred in prison, he had ceased taking his medication and eating as soon as he was apprehended.
The police said that Mr. Bhiri was still being looked into for possible “terrorism” even after his release.
On Monday evening, according to the media, police also detained Noureddine Boutar, the head of the widely-heard private radio station Mosaque FM.
The former leader of Ennahdha, Abdelhamid Jelassi, and a political activist named Khayam Turki, as well as two former judges, were all detained by the Tunisian police on Saturday. The businessman Kamel Eltaef, who was long considered the eminence grise of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, was also detained.
Mr. Eltaef, 68, a member of the underworld, is regarded by many Tunisians as one of the emblems of corruption since Ben Ali’s time in power.
Mr. Eltaef, a lobbyist with extensive diplomatic contacts, has had successful and unsuccessful careers in politics and the police.
Those detained over the weekend are allegedly accused of “plotting against state security,” according to the local media.
The opposition has criticised the prosecution of various politicians since President Saied’s takeover as a means of settling scores.
In Tunisia, where the Ben Ali government was overthrown in 2011 by the first Arab Spring uprising, the opposition accuses Mr. Saied of constructing an authoritarian administration that suppresses liberties and imperils democracy.
