In response, Saied has cracked down on political dissidents, banning all Ennahda office meetings and closing the National Salvation Front’s headquarters.
Thousands of people have since protested Saied’s regime. Unrest erupted almost two years later, when Saied suspended parliament and dismissed then-Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi from office. Tunisians have faced food shortages, soaring inflation, and economic crises since Saied came to power in October 2019. Since then, Saied’s “assault on human rights has been a steady drip, drip rather than a massive show of force on day one,” Goldstein wrote. Upon returning after Tunisia ’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution, he acted as speaker of parliament before being removed in 2021 when Saied sent tanks to shut down the chamber. The moderate Islamist served jail time as a political prisoner in the 1980s and then lived in exile for decades in the United Kingdom. This is not Ghannouchi’s first time under political fire, Human Rights Watch’s Eric Goldstein explained in Foreign Policy. More than 20 of Saied’s political opponents have been arrested this year, with Saied saying any judge who freed them could be accused of abetting “traitors.” Ghannouchi was also accused of threatening civil war if Saied barred Ennahda from politics. The former parliamentary speaker and co-founder of the Islamist Ennahda party is one of the most prominent critics of Tunisian President Kais Saied and has labeled Saied’s 2021 power grab and subsequent dissolution of parliament a “ coup.” Ghannouchi first appeared in court in February on terrorism-related charges for allegedly plotting against state security. In a statement posted on Facebook, the National Salvation Front opposition coalition, which includes Ghannouchi’s party, denounced the ruling, saying it “provides further evidence that arbitrariness has replaced the law in public life, and that no critic, regardless of their position or affiliation, is safe from having their freedom confiscated and being thrown into prison.” The 81-year-old Ghannouchi was charged with incitement after giving a funeral eulogy last year saying the deceased “did not fear poverty, ruler, or tyrant.” A member of a police union filed a complaint alleging that “tyrant” referred to police officers. Tunisia took another step toward autocracy on Monday when a judge sentenced Ennahda party opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi to one year in prison.
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