Tunisia arrests opposition figure Ben Mbarek: family

Tunisian security forces have arrested prominent opposition figure Jawhar Ben Mbarek, on Friday, the latest detention in a crackdown against rivals of President Kais Saied.

“Jawhar was arrested late last night and we haven’t seen the charges against him,” said Dalila Msaddek, who is also a lawyer.

Ben Mbarek is a key member of main opposition coalition the National Salvation Front (FSN), and leader of a movement called “Citizens Against the Coup”.

Both were formed in protest at Saied after the president froze parliament and sacked the government in July 2021, later moving to seize control of the judiciary and revamp the country’s post-revolution political system to concentrate power in his office.

The FSN has slammed a string of “repressive” arrests after police in the North African country — birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings more than a decade ago — detained 10 public figures including the director of the country’s most popular private radio station, which has been critical of the president.

Ben Mbarek, a constitutional law expert like Saied, had supported the president in his successful 2019 election bid, but has since become one of his leading critics.

NSF head Ahmed Nejib Chebbi has called the arrests “violent and legally baseless”.

On Wednesday, police arrested senior NSF member Chaima Issa and Chebbi’s brother, who is also a prominent politician.

Issam Chebbi, head of the Al-Joumhouri (Republican) party, was detained by around 20 plain-clothed police officers in Ariana, part of greater Tunis, the NSF chief said.

The anti-Saied alliance includes Ennahdha, the Islamist-leaning party that had dominated Tunisia’s fractious politics from the revolution until Saied’s power grab.

Since seizing full executive powers, Saied has neutered parliament and pushed through a new constitution that gives him near-unlimited control and makes it almost impossible to impeach him.

Authorities have placed several of his critics on trial in military courts, and rights groups say he is reinstalling an authoritarian system more than a decade after the toppling of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the country’s pro-democracy revolt.

Amnesty International has accused authorities of “escalating efforts to crack down on high-profile critics and perceived opponents” of Saied, urging the government to end what it called a “politically motivated witch hunt.”