Senior Ennahdha party official held in Tunisia: lawyer

Senior Ennahdha party official held in Tunisia: lawyer

TUNIS: Plainclothes officers in Tunisia's capital on Friday arrested a senior official of the Ennahdha party which played a central role in the country's politics until a power grab by President Kais Saied. Tunisia was the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring revolts of a decade ago but civil society groups and Saied's opponents have expressed fear of a slide back to authoritarianism a decade after the revolution that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ennahdha condemned the arrest of Noureddine Bhiri, a former justice minister and deputy president of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, as a "dangerous precedent". "Plainclothes agents in two cars arrested Noureddine Bhiri when he was leaving home with his wife," Samir Dilou, a lawyer and former legislator, told AFP. No official was available to explain the reason for Bhiri's arrest. But in a statement issued late Friday, the interior ministry said it had ordered two people, whom it did not identify, to be placed under house arrest. This "preventive measure was dictated by the need to safeguard national security," it said, without elaborating. Saied on July 25 sacked the Ennahdha-supported government and suspended parliament, presenting himself as the ultimate interpreter of the constitution.