Berlin, through the voice of its Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, declared this Friday that “The democratic gains since 2011 in Tunisia must not be lost”.
The words of the head of German diplomacy come after the detention on Thursday of Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Tunisian Islamic movement “Ennahdha”.
In response to a question posed during a press conference in Berlin, Annalena Baerbock expressed her “greatest concern” for the fate of the president of the “Ennahdha” party.
Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed had firmly rejected in a video broadcast by the Presidency of the Republic, Thursday evening, “any interference in the internal affairs of Tunisia”, after international reactions concerning the detention of Rached Ghannouchi.
“Some capitals have expressed concern. Why are they doing this when it is a call for civil war and the law has been applied by magistrates with integrity,” he said.
“This blatant interference in our affairs is unacceptable. We are an independent and sovereign country and we do not accept anyone interfering in our affairs (…) We are neither a colonized state nor under a mandate”, he argued, before adding: “That they stop trying to interfere in our affairs (…). We have not expressed our concern about the arrests that have taken place in a number of countries, including European countries”.
The investigating judge at the Court of First Instance of Tunis issued a warrant of committal against the president of the Ennahdha movement, Rached Ghannouchi, on Thursday, after hours of hearing in the context of the case of statements attributed to him and which would come under “incitement against State security”.
Ghannouchi is one of the eminent figures of the National Salvation Front (FSN), an opposition coalition in Tunisia which rejects the exceptional measures decreed by the Head of State Kaïs Saïed since July 25, 2021, including between others, the dismissal of the government, the appointment of a new Executive, the dissolution of the Superior Council of the Judiciary and of Parliament, the promulgation of laws by presidential decrees, the adoption of a new Constitution by referendum on July 25, 2022, as well as the holding of early legislative elections boycotted by the opposition.
The 81-year-old Ennahdha leader was arrested by police at his home in Tunis on Monday and taken to the National Guard barracks in El Aouina, on the instructions of the prosecutor’s office near the judicial center for the fight against terrorism, according to local media.
According to the Islamic movement, the arrest of its leader comes against the backdrop of his speech at a political conference organized by the DSF on April 15. In his speech published on the FSN’s Facebook page, Ghannouchi warned against the exclusion of any party, declaring in this sense that “imagining Tunisia without this or that party, without Ennahdha, without political Islam, without the left is a civil war project.
The Tunisian authorities have, since February 11, 2023, carried out a wave of arrests of well-known personalities, including party leaders, journalists, magistrates, an influential businessman, lawyers, political activists, and trade unionists.
On February 14, Kaïs Saïed accused some of the defendants of being involved in a plot against state security, holding them responsible for the shortage of basic products and the soaring prices.
