TUNIS (Reuters) -Tunisia’s National Salvation Front opposition coalition said on Thursday it would demonstrate on Sunday despite being denied permission by the authorities, amid a crackdown on high profile critics of the country’s president.
Tunisia’s opposition is watching for how the authorities will handle that protest and another called for Saturday by the powerful labour union, UGTT, in light of a series of arrests of prominent critics of President Kais Saied.
The governor of Tunis said in a statement that he was refusing permission for Sunday’s protest because the group’s leaders are accused of conspiring against state security.
Leaders of the National Salvation Front coalition are among over a dozen opponents of the president arrested over the past month on charges that the opposition says are politically motivated.
The arrests, which also include other senior politicians, the owner of a major media outlet and a prominent businessman, represent the biggest crackdown on opponents of Saied since he seized most powers in 2021.
His opponents accuse him of a coup for shutting down the parliament, moving to rule by decree and writing a new constitution that he passed in a referendum last year giving himself most powers.
Saied has said his actions were legal and needed to save Tunisia from chaos, and he has promised to uphold rights and freedoms. Most protests since his seizure of powers have been permitted.
The UGTT union is holding its own protest in the capital on Saturday, which will be joined by several other opposition parties that are not part of the National Salvation Front, they said.
The UGTT said authorities had told it they would bar from entry a delegation from the International Trade Union Confederation that it had invited to join the protest. It said a Spanish labour union official had already been deported.
“The UGTT condemns the decision,” said its leader Noureddine Taboubi, adding that it would add to what he called Tunisia’s growing international isolation and that the union would respond to “hostile” measures.
(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Hugh Lawson, William Maclean, Richard Chang and Sharon Singleton)
