Presidential election in Tunisia | Hundreds of demonstrators denounce “trampled freedoms”

(Tunis) Hundreds of demonstrators demonstrated in Tunisia on Friday to denounce “trampled freedoms” in the cradle of the Arab Spring since a coup by President Kais Saied, who is seeking a new five-year term on Sunday.

“Neither fear nor terror, power is in the hands of the people,” chanted the demonstrators, around 800 of whom marched on the main avenue of Tunis, according to AFP journalists.

Tunisia is preparing to choose its new president on Sunday in a tense climate for a civil society which has denounced increasing attacks on rights and freedoms since Mr. Saied, democratically elected in 2019, seized full powers in the summer 2021.

Since the spring of 2023, dozens of opponents, including leading figures, have been arrested on serious charges of “plot against state security”.

Trade unionists, lawyers and political commentators are also imprisoned under a controversial law on “fake news”. Associations also complain of increased controls on the foreign funding they receive.

According to Human Rights Watch, “more than 170 people are currently detained for political reasons or for exercising their fundamental rights.”

“The streets are still active to denounce attacks on freedoms and human rights two days before the elections,” underlined Bassem Trifi, president of the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH). “We came out to denounce the violation of freedoms, of democracy, of the achievements of the Revolution, in particular freedom of expression and freedom of associative work,” he added.

In a show of force, police mobilized anti-riot units and water trucks to guard the parade.

The protesters, many of them young human rights activists and artists, called for a boycott of Sunday’s “masquerade” presidential election. For Leila Chebbi, an actress, “Kais Saïed trampled on freedoms”. “I boycott elections that break the law and are not legitimate.”

Protesters called President Saied a “manipulative pharaoh of the law” after a selection process for candidates – only three out of 17 initially – criticized for hard-to-obtain sponsorships, imprisonment of potential candidates and ousting of others serious suitors.

“Country of repression and dictatorship”, “Electoral celebration transformed into a coup d’état”, could be read on protesters’ signs.

“Liberty, freedom”, many called for the “fall of the regime”, the key slogan of the popular uprising and the Revolution which brought down the dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.