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Tunisia readies for vote as incumbent Saied eyes victory

Tunisia readies for vote as incumbent Saied eyes victory
Almost 10 million Tunisians are set to head to the polls on October 6, 2024 for a vote in which experts say incumbent President Kais Saied is poised for victory amid what many have deemed a rollback in rights and freedoms as a number of his critics are behind bars. (AFP/File)
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Updated 03 October 2024

Tunisia readies for vote as incumbent Saied eyes victory

Tunisia readies for vote as incumbent Saied eyes victory
  • Saied’s expected win has created a mood of resignation in opposition ranks and made for a deeply lacklustre campaign
  • A little known law lecturer until he was thrust to power in 2019, Saied in 2021 staged a sweeping power grab, jailing many of his critics

TUNIS: Tunisians head to the polls Sunday for a presidential election in which analysts say incumbent Kais Saied is poised for victory with his most prominent critics behind bars.
The near-certainty of Saied’s win has created a mood of resignation in opposition ranks and made for a deeply lacklustre campaign.
There have been no campaign rallies or public debates and nearly all the campaign posters in city streets have been the incumbent’s.
It is a major step back for a country that long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 and a contrast even with the 2019 election that thrust Saied, then a little known law lecturer, to power.
The political outsider won by a landslide, with 73 percent of the vote in a second round runoff that saw turnout of 58 percent.
He had campaigned on a platform of strong government after nearly a decade of deadlock between Islamist and secular blocs since the 2011 revolution.
In 2021, he staged a sweeping power grab, dismissing the Islamist-led parliament. The following year he rewrote the constitution.
A quickening crackdown on political dissent which has seen jail sentences for critics across the political spectrum has drawn mounting criticism at home and abroad.
Jailed opposition figures include Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist-inspired opposition party Ennahdha, which dominated political life after the revolution.
Also detained is Abir Moussi, head of the Free Destourian Party, which critics accuse of wanting to bring back the ousted regime.

Saied’s critics say that higher thresholds for candidate registration have also been exploited by the incumbent’s campaign.
Fourteen hopefuls were barred from joining the race, after election organizers ruled they had failed to provide enough signatures of endorsement, among other technicalities.
Some have been jailed after being convicted of forging signatures.
Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have charged that the organizers’ decision to reject the candidates was political.
Hatem Nafti, a political commentator and author of a forthcoming book on Saied’s authoritarian rule, said rights and freedoms have been curtailed since Saied’s “coup d’etat” in 2021.
“But things have reached a new level during this election, with attempts to prevent any succession (to Saied),” he told AFP.
The result has been that Saied faces just two challengers, one of them, former lawmaker Zouhair Maghzaoui, a supporter of the president’s 2021 power grab who “remains associated” with him, Nafti said.
North Africa analyst Pierre Vermeren said the election’s outcome had been decided in advance, citing “imbalances of all sorts between candidates.”
“Everything was done to ensure that a second round did not take place,” he told AFP.
Referring to Maghzaoui, Vermeren said “allowing a second-rate personality with a similar political persuasion as Saied’s” to join the race presented the incumbent with no real risk to his rule.
He said Maghzaoui’s candidacy was “a way of neutralising potential opposition.”

The second challenger, Ayachi Zammel, is also a former lawmaker and leads a small liberal party.
His candidacy was approved by election organizers shortly before he was charged with and later convicted of forging voter endorsements.
He currently faces more than 12 years in prison.
The jail sentence doesn’t affect his candidacy. The same was the case with 2019 presidential hopeful Nabil Karoui, who made it into the runoff against Saied from behind bars.
But unlike Zammel, Karoui was well known as the owner of widely watched television channel Nessma.
Nafti said Zammel had the potential to rally support from across the political spectrum, but he doubted it was “enough,” particularly after the prison sentence.
“He could have represented a focal point for the opposition, but his status as a convicted prisoner can only lead voters to disengagement and abstention,” he said.
With little at stake for Saied, his main challenge is to ensure a respectable turnout.
In the 2022 referendum on Saied’s revision of the constitution, only 30 percent of voters turned out.
In 2024 elections to a new legislature with limited powers, that figure fell to 11 percent — a record low since the revolution.


Gaza civil defense says Israeli forces kill 28 people

Gaza civil defense says Israeli forces kill 28 people
Updated 26 July 2025

Gaza civil defense says Israeli forces kill 28 people

Gaza civil defense says Israeli forces kill 28 people
  • The toll includes at least eight people killed by Israeli fire while waiting to collect humanitarian aid, Bassal said

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli military operations killed at least 23 people on Friday across the Palestinian territory, with another five killed in an overnight air strike.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed in a strike on Gaza City that hit a school building sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war, now in its 22nd month.
Bassal said five others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent used by displaced Palestinians also in Gaza City, in the territory’s north.
The Israeli military said that strike was carried out late Thursday, targeting “a key terrorist in the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization,” a militant group that has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza.
According to the civil defense agency, more than a dozen other Palestinians were killed in several strikes in Gaza’s north, center and south on Friday.
The toll includes at least eight people killed by Israeli fire while waiting to collect humanitarian aid, Bassal said.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not comment on the agency’s reports.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.
Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli campaign has killed 59,676 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

 


Tunisians protest aginst President Saied, call country an ‘open-air prison’

Tunisians protest aginst President Saied, call country an ‘open-air prison’
Updated 25 July 2025

Tunisians protest aginst President Saied, call country an ‘open-air prison’

Tunisians protest aginst President Saied, call country an ‘open-air prison’
  • Under the slogan “The Republic is a large prison,” protesters marched along Habib Bourguiba Avenue
  • They chanted slogans such as “no fear, no terror ... streets belong to the people” and “The people want the fall of the regime”

TUNIS: Hundreds of Tunisian activists protested in the capital on Friday against President Kais Saied, denouncing his rule as an “authoritarian regime” that has turned the country into an “open-air prison”.

Under the slogan “The Republic is a large prison,” protesters marched along Habib Bourguiba Avenue. They demanded the release of jailed opposition leaders, journalists, and activists.

The protest marked the fourth anniversary of Saied’s power grab. In 2021, he dissolved the elected parliament and started ruling by decree, a move the opposition called a coup.

They chanted slogans such as “no fear, no terror ... streets belong to the people” and “The people want the fall of the regime”.

The protesters said Tunisia under Saied has descended into authoritarianism, with mass arrests and politically motivated trials silencing dissent.

“Our first aim is to battle against tyranny to restore the democracy and to demand the release of the political detainees,” Monia Ibrahim, wife of imprisoned politician Abdelhamid Jelassi, told Reuters.

In 2022, Saied dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council and sacked dozens of judges, a move the opposition said was aimed to cement one-man rule.

Saied said he does not interfere in the judiciary, but no one is above accountability, regardless of their name or position.

Most prominent opposition leaders are in prison, including Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist Ennahda party, and Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party.

They are among dozens of politicians, lawyers, and journalists facing lengthy prison sentences under anti-terrorism and conspiracy laws.

Others have fled the country, seeking asylum in Western countries.

In 2023, Saied said the politicians were “traitors and terrorists” and that judges who would acquit them were their accomplices.

“Prisons are crowded with Saied’s opponents, activists, journalists,” said Saib Souab, son of Ahmed Souab, the imprisoned lawyer Ahmed Souab who is a critical voice of Saied.

“Tunisia has turned into an open-air prison. ... Even those not behind bars live in a state of temporary freedom, constantly at risk of arrest for any reason.,” he added.


Israel says intercepted missile fired from Yemen

Israel says intercepted missile fired from Yemen
Updated 25 July 2025

Israel says intercepted missile fired from Yemen

Israel says intercepted missile fired from Yemen
  • A missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the air force, said a military statement

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it intercepted on Friday a missile launched from Yemen toward its territory, after reporting that sirens sounded in several areas.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted” by the air force, the military said in a statement.


Israel strike kills one in south Lebanon

Israel strike kills one in south Lebanon
Updated 25 July 2025

Israel strike kills one in south Lebanon

Israel strike kills one in south Lebanon
  • Health ministry said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in Baraachit resulted in one dead
  • Israel’s military said it had “eliminated the personnel officer for Hezbollah’s Bint Jbeil sector“

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon on Friday killed one person, authorities said, with the Israeli military identifying the slain man as an official with militant group Hezbollah.

Israel has repeatedly struck Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities with Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

The Lebanese health ministry said Friday that “an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the village of Baraachit resulted in one dead.”

The Israeli military said it had “eliminated the personnel officer for Hezbollah’s Bint Jbeil sector,” near the Israeli border.

The man “was involved in efforts to rehabilitate the terrorist organization in the Bint Jbeil area of southern Lebanon and operated to recruit terrorists during the war,” a military statement said.

On Thursday, Israel said it had struck Hezbollah weapons depots and a rocket launcher, and “eliminated a Hezbollah terrorist” in Lebanon’s south.

Under the November truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving Lebanon’s army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.

Israel was to withdraw its troops from Lebanon but has kept them in five areas it deems strategic.


Paramilitary attacks kill 30 in Sudan village

Paramilitary attacks kill 30 in Sudan village
Updated 25 July 2025

Paramilitary attacks kill 30 in Sudan village

Paramilitary attacks kill 30 in Sudan village
  • The group added that the RSF also stormed major medical facilities in the city, expelling patients and using hospitals to treat wounded paramilitary fighters

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed at least 30 civilians in a two-day assault on a village in the country’s western region of Kordofan, a war monitor said Friday.
In recent months, as the war between the paramilitary troops and the regular army roared into its third year, Kordofan has emerged as a key battlefront, with the paramilitaries seeking to consolidate their control in the west after losing the capital Khartoum.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the war, said paramilitary fighters attacked the village of Brima Rasheed on Wednesday and Thursday, killing three civilians in the first raid and 27 others the following day.
It added in a statement that the dead included women and children.

FASTFACTS

• In recent months, as the war between the paramilitary troops and the regular army roared into its third year, Kordofan has emerged as a key battlefront.

• The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the war, said paramilitary fighters attacked the village of Brima Rasheed on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Emergency Lawyers said the paramilitary troops’ “indiscriminate killing” of civilians constituted “a serious violation” of international law.
Casualty figures are nearly impossible to independently verify, with most health facilities shut down and large swaths of Sudan inaccessible to journalists.
The monitor said sporadic clashes were also reported between paramilitary fighters and armed civilians in Brima Rasheed village, near the RSF-held city of En Nahud in West Kordofan state — a key transit point once used by the army to send reinforcements further west.
The Emergency Lawyers said that in recent days violence has spread across En Nahud, with reports of dozens of civilians killed and residential areas attacked.
The group added that the RSF also stormed major medical facilities in the city, expelling patients and using hospitals to treat wounded paramilitary fighters.
Those who resisted were beaten or detained, the Emergency Lawyers said.
Meanwhile, the UN said Friday that more than 1.3 million people who fled the fighting in Sudan have headed home, pleading for greater international aid to help returnees rebuild shattered lives.
Over a million internally displaced people have returned to their homes in recent months, UN agencies said.
A further 320,000 refugees have crossed back into Sudan this year, mainly from neighboring Egypt and South Sudan.
While fighting has subsided in the “pockets of relative safety” to where people are beginning to return, the situation remains highly precarious, the UN said.
In a joint statement, the UN’s IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support to fund the recovery as people begin to return.
It said humanitarian operations were “massively underfunded.”
Sudan has 10 million IDPs, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said.
Over 4 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Sudan is “the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered,” the IOM’s regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan, told a media briefing in Geneva.
He said most of the returns (71 percent) had been to Al-Jazira state, while 8 percent had been to Khartoum.
Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state. Both Al-Jazira and Sennar are located southeast of Khartoum.
With the army controlling Sudan’s center, north and east, and the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the main battleground of the war in recent weeks.
“We expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services in a timely manner,” Belbeisi said.
He said the “vicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity,” imploring the warring factions to put down their guns.
“The war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people,” he said.
“Sudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop.”