Tunisian Islamist leader arrested in crackdown on opposition

TUNISIAN authorities arrested the leader of the Ennahda opposition Islamist movement in a crackdown on rival politicians and critics of the North African country’s increasingly authoritarian president Kais Saied, lawyers said Tuesday.

Noureddine Bhiri, a senior Ennahda leader, was taken into custody by armed police at his home in the capital, Tunis, late Monday on suspicion of being part of a “conspiracy against the country’s security,” the movement’s lawyer, Ines Harrathi, said in a Facebook post.

Lazhar Akremi, a lawyer and critic of Saied, and Noureddine Bouttar, the director general of an independent radio station, Mosaïque, were also arrested by the security forces in the early hours of Tuesday, according to Bouttar’s lawyer, Dalila Msaddek.

Authorities have not released any information on the wave of arrests that started over the weekend.

The crackdown — targeting Tunisian opposition figures, the president’s critics and opponents in the media, judiciary and business community