April 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
A court of first instance in Tunisia has charged several opposition leaders – including the leader of the Republican Party, Issam Chebbi, the leader of the Democratic Current, Ghazi Chauachi, and Abdelhamid Jelassi, one of the leaders of Ennahda – for a series of charges including conspiracy and terrorism against the State, which carry the death penalty.
Chauachi and Jauher ben Mbarek, a prominent politician from the National Salvation Front, have been charged with participating in a terrorist conspiracy, failing to report a terrorist crime, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the State, and insulting the country's president. Kais Saied, as published by the Tunisian news portal Kapitalis.
Both Chebbi, Jelassi and the leader of the Tunisia First party, Ridha Belhaj, have been accused of participating in a terrorist conspiracy, failing to report a terrorist crime and conspiring against state internal and external security.
In addition, the Tunisian businessman and politician Jayam Turki – one of the leaders of the left-wing Ettakatol party -, the influential businessman Kamel Eltaief and Nureddine Bhiri – a member of the opposition party Ennahda – have been charged with participating in a terrorist conspiracy, of financing terrorism and conspiring against the internal and external security of the State.
Saied assumed additional powers in 2021 when he closed the elected Parliament, dominated by the Islamic Ennahda formation, and went on to govern by decree before assuming authority over the judiciary, a move for which he assumed all state powers and considered by his critics like a self-coup d'état.
The opposition, mostly grouped around the National Salvation Front (FSN), has denounced the president's authoritarian drift for more than two years and has demanded his resignation, especially given the wave of arrests of opponents, activists and journalists, as well as the low participation rates in the constitutional referendum and the elections held since then in Tunisia.
