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During a march this Saturday in Tunisia against a referendum called for July by President Kais Saied, scuffles broke out between police and protesters.
Police blocked protesters as they tried to reach the headquarters of the electoral board, whose head Saied replaced last month, in a further move to extend his control of state institutions, according to opponents.
“The police used tear gas against us and attacked us,” Tunisian Workers’ Party spokesman Hamma Hammami told AFP.
Some participants in the protest organized by five small parties carried signs reading “President’s Commission = Fraud Commission.”
In a roadmap that was supposed to lead the country out of the crisis, Saied planned a referendum on constitutional amendments for July 25, before legislative elections on December 17.
However, no draft of the new Constitution has been published, the approval of which will be presented to the people in the form of a simple yes/no vote.
Opponents of the president accuse him of leading the country towards autocracy and wanting to assemble a docile electoral body before the referendum and legislative elections.
“These free voices will never be silenced”
President Kais Saied this week sacked 57 judges, accusing them of corruption and harboring terrorists, in a crackdown on the judiciary, his latest move to tighten his grip on power in the country.
The judges of Tunisia decided this Saturday that they will suspend the office in the courts for a week from Monday, and will hold a demonstration to protest against the purge of their ranks.
In a session attended by hundreds of judges, including some of those dismissed, they said the purge came after they rejected interventions by the justice minister and, in some cases, by people close to the president.
“This injustice will not go by in silence… These free voices will never be silenced,” said Anas Hamaidi, president of the Tunisian Association of Judges. “The attack was not only against the judges, but against the law and freedoms.”
Rahed Ghannouhci, the speaker of the dissolved parliament, called in a statement for “national forces, parties and civil society to support judges in resisting the brutal dictatorship to preserve an independent judiciary.”
Arab Spring gains in jeopardy?
Since July 25, 2021, Kais Saied has concentrated all powers and directed the country through decree-laws, which raises fears of an autocratic drift in the cradle of the Arab Spring.
On April 22, Saied assumed the power to appoint three of the seven members of the Superior Instance of Independent Elections (ISIE), including the president. On May 9, he appointed Farouk Bouasker, a former ISIE member, to head this body, replacing Nabil Baffoun, who had criticized the July 2021 coup.
Saied’s purge of the judiciary sparked international outrage. Washington accused him of undermining Tunisia’s democratic institutions.
Many Tunisians, however, support his actions against a system they say has done little to improve their quality of life in the decade since the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
With AFP and Reuters
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