Tunisian lawmaker arrested after Facebook posts criticizing Saied
Yassin Ayari had accused the Tunisian president of staging a "coup against the constitution."
Tunisia arrested a member of parliament, Yassine Ayari, at his home Friday after he accused President Kais Saied of an unconstitutional power grab.
Ayari had on social media repeatedly lashed out at Saied, who on Sunday announced he was firing Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, suspending the Tunisian parliament and stripping lawmakers of their immunity. Ayari, a member of the Amal Movement, described the ongoing events in Tunisia as a “coup against the constitution."
“[Saied] made a constitution by himself and he is enforcing it with guns,” he wrote on Facebook days before his arrest.
Ayari’s wife, Cyrine Fitouri, told Reuters that 20 officers in plainclothes raided their home Friday afternoon. “They took him forcefully while his mother was shouting,” she told the news agency, saying family members were instructed not to film his arrest. Ayari’s lawyer told Al Jazeera that the lawmaker was taken to an unknown destination by security forces.
