{"id":8708,"date":"2024-05-20T09:03:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T09:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8708"},"modified":"2024-05-20T09:03:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T09:03:27","slug":"hundreds-of-tunisian-presidents-supporters-protest-against-foreign-interference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8708","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Tunisian President\u2019s supporters protest against \u2018foreign interference\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hundreds of people demonstrated in Tunis on Sunday in support of President Kais Saied amid widespread criticism at home and abroad after a wave of arrests that included journalists, activists and lawyers.<\/p>\n

The European Union, France and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern at the arrests and at a police raid on the headquarters of the bar association this month in which two lawyers critical of the president were detained.<\/p>\n

Police this month arrested 10 people, including\u00a0journalists,\u00a0lawyers\u00a0and officials of civil society groups, in what was described as a crackdown by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which called on Tunisia to respect free speech and civil liberties.<\/p>\n

Last week, lawyers went on strike, saying one of the two lawyers arrested in the bar association raid had been tortured, an allegation denied by the Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n

Following international criticism, Saied last week asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to call in several ambassadors to protest at their countries\u2019 interference in Tunisia\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n

On Habib Bourguiba Street, the capital\u2019s main boulevard, demonstrators carried pictures of Saied and banners urging the West to leave Tunisia alone.<\/p>\n

Saied\u2019s supporters, most of whom arrived on buses from out of town, chanted: \u201cThe people want Kais Saied.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here to support Saied \u2026 We are against foreign intervention and traitors,\u201d said Ammar Hassen, 37.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe West is moving their lobbies and traitors here to destabilize Tunisia\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

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Saied, who came to power following free elections in 2019, shut down parliament two years later and began to rule by decree. He has repeatedly accused activists, civil society groups, and his opponents of being traitors.<\/p>\n

Most opposition leaders have been in prison for months, including\u00a0Abir Moussa<\/a>, leader of the Free Constitutional Party, and\u00a0Rached Ghannouchi<\/a>, head of the Islamist Ennahdha Party.<\/p>

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Hundreds of people demonstrated in Tunis on Sunday in support of President Kais Saied amid widespread criticism at home and abroad after a wave of arrests that included journalists, activists… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}