A Tunisian investigating judge ordered the imprisonment of Rashid Ganuchi, leader of the main Tunisian opposition party, the Islamist Ennahda, and a prominent critic of President Kais Saied, reported the politician's lawyer, Monia Bouali, on Thursday. Ghannouchi, who was arrested on Monday, is accused of conspiring against the internal security of the Tunisian state.
The decision to jail him was made after an investigation that lasted eight hours, the defense added. Tunisian police have arrested several political figures this year who have accused Saied of being a coup plotter, over his moves to close parliament and rule by decree before rewriting the constitution. "Imprisoning Ganuchi was a rigged decision, just because he expressed his opinion," the lawyer said.
The opposition leader commented on the judge's decision on Facebook: "I am optimistic about the future (...) Tunisia is free." Ganuchi, 81, is the former president of the elected Parliament, which was closed in 2021 by Saied when he seized all the powers. Tunisian authorities on Tuesday banned meetings at all offices of the Islamist Ennahda party and police closed the headquarters of the Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition.
Ennahda has expressed fears that the move will pave the way for the party's ban. The United States stated that the arrest of Ganuchi, the closure of the Ennahda headquarters and the ban on meetings of opposition groups represent a worrying escalation of authoritarianism. A Tunisian Interior Ministry official stated that Ganuchi was detained for "inciting statements".
Ganuchi told an opposition meeting last week that "Tunisia without Ennahda, without political Islam, without the left or any other component, is a project of civil war." The influential leader, who was in exile in the 1990s and returned during the 2011 Tunisian revolution that brought democracy to the country, says those who "celebrated the coup are extremists and terrorists." Ganuchi has faced repeated rounds of judicial questioning in the past year on charges related to Ennahda's finances and on allegations that he helped Islamists travel to Syria for jihad, charges both he and the party deny.
