Tunisian MP Detained for Criticizing President Saied

By Staff, Agencies

Tunisian authorities arrested Member of Parliament Ahmed Saidani after he publicly mocked President Kais Saied, according to two parliamentary sources.

The arrest reportedly took place on Wednesday and is being seen by opposition figures and rights groups as part of an escalating campaign against critics of the Tunisian president.

Saidani, known for his outspoken criticism of President Saied, mocked him on Facebook Tuesday as the “supreme commander of sanitation and rainwater drainage,” highlighting the president’s failure to deliver on promised reforms or national achievements.

Tunisia’s crackdown on dissent continues, with critics like Rached Ghannouchi jailed and dozens targeted under broad laws since 2021. Last week, the European Parliament urged the release of political prisoners, which President Saied denounced as foreign interference.

Ahead of the October 2024 election, Tunisia’s authorities moved to crush political opposition, arresting over a hundred Ennahda members, including presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel, and restructuring judicial and electoral bodies under presidential control.

Since his 2021 power grab, Saied has systematically suppressed dissent, dissolving the Supreme Judicial Council in 2022 and dismissing judges, while mass trials since 2025 have sentenced opposition figures, lawyers, and media professionals to decades in prison.

At the same time, Tunisia’s civil society faced a harsh crackdown, with authorities freezing NGO assets, suspending at least 14 groups in 2025, and using foreign-funding laws to silence independent watchdogs.

While Saied claims this targets “traitors and corruption,” critics see it as weaponizing the judiciary to crush dissent and entrench one-man rule.