Rached Ghannouchi, the opposition leader in Tunisia who was jailed by President Kais Saied of Tunisia has started a three-day hunger strike to show sympathy for other opposition leaders who are detained, according to a statement released by his Islamist Ennahda party today Friday (September 29, 2023).
In May, Ghannouchi, 82, was found guilty of inciting and conspiring against state security, and he was given a year in prison. This year, there have been detentions of over 20 additional opposition figures.
They claim that Saied’s decision to dissolve the elected parliament in 2021 and his efforts to impose rule by decree amounted to a coup. Saied has denied his actions were a coup and claimed they were required to save Tunisia from years of anarchy. Saied established his new constitutional powers in a referendum with a low turnout last year.
According to a statement from the Ennahda party, the three-day action was started by the party’s leader to support other imprisoned opposition figures who are protesting their alleged wrongful detention.
An ongoing hunger strike by famous opposition leader Jawher Ben Mbarak, who has been imprisoned for more than seven months, was started this week in protest of what he believes to be his politically motivated detention.
Saied has branded his detractors as criminals, traitors, and terrorists and issued a warning that any court who releases them will be seen as aiding and abetting them.
Ghannouchi, a political prisoner and exile before to the 2011 revolution that restored democracy, assumed the position of parliament speaker following the 2019 election, and his party remained the largest in the legislature until Saied dispatched tanks to dissolve it in 2021.
According to his attorney, the accusations against him are related to a eulogy he delivered for a member of his Ennahda party last year in which he stated that the deceased “did not fear a ruler or tyrant, he only feared God.”
The Tunisian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
