The second day of a wave of arrests of notable
persons, including politicians and a businessman, saw Tunisian police detain
two former judges who were fired by President Kais Saied last year, according
to a lawyer and local media.
Anouar Awled Ali, a lawyer involved in the
proceedings, told Reuters that police detained Bechir Akremi and Tayeb Rached,
two of the numerous judges and officials of the judiciary dismissed in 2022.
According to the local Mosaique FM radio
network, Akremi's detention was related to the probe into the murder of
political activist Chokri Belaid ten years ago. Rached's arrest, it continued,
was motivated by allegations of financial corruption.
Police apprehended a number of persons on
suspicion of conspiring to compromise state security on Saturday. Khayam Turki,
a former finance minister, Abd El Hamid Jlassi, a former senior Ennahda
official, and Kamel Ltaif, a businessman with connections to previous coalition
governments, were all detained.
Requests for comment regarding the arrests
were not immediately answered by an Interior Ministry official.
The largest opposition group, Ennahda, claimed
the arrests were made to intimidate the president of Tunisia's critics.
Since Saied seized the majority of the
country's power in 2021 and began taking steps to establish absolute control
over the court, rights groups have expressed growing alarm about the state of
political liberties in Tunisia.
Saied's political adversaries, whom he has
branded traitors, have accused him of staging a coup with the intention of
destroying the democracy established during a 2011 revolution.
The president has refuted these charges,
claiming that his actions were legal and necessary to keep Tunisia from
destabilising. He vowed to protect the liberties and rights secured during the
revolution.
Authorities have recently detained or launched
investigations into a number of Saied's political rivals.