Tunisian authorities escalate pre-election crackdown and arrest Islamists en masse

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Dozens of members of Tunisia’s largest opposition party were arrested this week ahead of the formal start of campaign season for the country’s presidential election, attorneys and officials from the party said Friday.

Ennahda, the Islamist party that rose to power in the aftermath of the country’s Arab Spring, said Friday that tallies collected by its local branches suggested at least 80 men and women from the party had been apprehended as part of a countrywide sweep that ensnared members from 10 regions.

In a statement, Ennahda called the arrests “an unprecedented campaign of raids and violations of the most basic rights guaranteed by law.” The party had counted at least 80 arrests and was in the process of confirming at least 116 total, including six women, attorney Latifa Habbechi said.

Former Minister of Youth and Sports Ahmed Gaaloul, a member of the party’s executive committee and advisor to its imprisoned leader Rached Ghannouchi, said the arrests included high-ranking party officials and had continued through Friday afternoon. Among them were Mohamed Guelwi, a member of the party’s executive committee, and Mohamed Ali Boukhatim, a regional party leader from Ben Arous, a suburb of Tunis.

The mass arrests are the latest to mar an already turbulent election season in Tunisia.

With political apathy rampant and the country’s most prominent opposition figures in prison, President Kais Saied has long been expected to win a second term without significant challenge. But the past few months have seen major upheaval nonetheless. Saied has sacked the majority of his cabinet and authorities have arrested more of his potential opponents. The country’s election authority made up of members he appointed has defied court orders to keep certain challengers off of the October 6 ballot. Campaign season formally begins on Saturday.

Those moves came after months of cascading arrests of journalists, lawyers and leading civil society figures, including many critics of the president charged under a controversial anti-fake news law that human rights groups say has been increasingly used to quash criticism.

Ennahda is still in the process of confirming the nature of each of the arrests. Habbechi, the attorney, said that roughly 20 of the detained had seen their attorneys as of Friday.

Based on documents provided, the party’s defense committee believes those arrested face charges related to Tunisia's anti-terrorism law. “But the questions raised concerned their political activities and their choice of candidate for the upcoming presidential elections,” Habbechi said, noting that some of those detained began interrogations at early Friday morning.

The vast majority of those arrested were senior party members of the party involved in Tunisia’s transitional justice process, which includes Ennahda members who were tortured in the years before President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali became the first Arab dictator toppled in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Habbechi said that roughly 90% were people who were incarcerated under Ben Ali and former president Habib Bourguiba and 70% were older than 60. She added that the names of those arrested corresponded with party documents listing victims of the dictatorship involved in the transitional justice process.

Tunisia’s globally acclaimed transitional justice process is a decade-old initiative designed to help victims who suffered at the hands of the government.

Ennahda is no stranger to having party members arrested. Ghannouchi, the party’s 83-year-old leader, has been in prison since April 2023. Multiple high-ranking officials, including members of its shura council and executive committee have also been arrested over the past year. This week’s arrests are the latest since authorities arrested party secretary general Lajmi Lourimi two months ago. Though the party has for more than three years decried arrests, detentions and legal proceedings against its members, Gaaloul said it had not previously seen arrests on a scale similar to this week.

The arrests came as hundreds of Tunisians protested in the North African nation’s capital, decrying the emergence of what they called a police state ahead of the Oct. 6 election. They were roundly condemned by other parties.

“These arrests come as a sign of further narrowing and deviation of the electoral process aiming at spreading fear and emptying the upcoming election of any chance for a real democratic competition,” Work and Accomplishment, a party led by former Ennahda member Abdellatif Mekki, said in a statement on Friday.

Mekki, who served as Tunisia’s Health Minister from 2011 to 2014, was also arrested in July as part of an investigation into a 2014 murder that his attorneys decried as politically motivated. Tunisia’s election authority has said it will defy an administrative court order and keep him off of next month’s ballot.

Metz reported from Rabat, Morocco.

Tunisian take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the capital Tunis. (AP Photo/Anis Mili)

Tunisian take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the capital Tunis.(AP Photo/Anis Mili)

Tunisian take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the capital Tunis. (AP Photo/Anis Mili)

Tunisian take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the capital Tunis. Banner in Arabic reads "Women against dictatorship." (AP Photo/Anis Mili)

Tunisian take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the capital Tunis. Banner in Arabic reads "Where is sugar? Where is oil? Where is freedom? Where is democracy?" (AP Photo/Anis Mili)

Tunisian take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the capital Tunis. (AP Photo/Anis Mili)

FILE - Tunisia's President Kais Saied speaks during a media conference at an EU Africa summit in Brussels, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (Johanna Geron, Pool Photo via AP, File)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on Tuesday were investigating the origin of suspicious packages that have been sent to or received by elections officials in more than a dozen states, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or that any of the packages contained hazardous material.

The latest packages were sent to elections officials in Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York and Rhode Island. Mississippi authorities reported a package was delivered there on Monday, and the Connecticut Secretary of State's office on Tuesday also said the FBI alerted them of a suspicious package that was intercepted.

The FBI is collecting the letters, some of which contained “an unknown substance,” spokesperson Kristen Setera of the agency's Boston office said in a statement.

“We are also working with our partners to determine how many letters were sent, the individual or individuals responsible for the letters, and the motive behind the letters,” she said. “As this is an ongoing matter we will not be commenting further on the investigation, but the public can be assured safety is our top priority.”

It’s the second time in the past year that suspicious packages were mailed to election officials in multiple state offices.

The latest scare comes as early voting has begun in several states less than two months ahead of the high-stakes elections for president, Senate, Congress and key statehouse offices around the nation, causing disruption in what is already a tense voting season. Local election directors are beefing up their security to keep their workers and polling places safe while also ensuring that ballots and voting procedures won’t be tampered with.

The National Association of Secretaries of State condemned what it described as a “disturbing trend” of threats to election workers leading up to Nov. 5, as well as the second apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

“This must stop, period,” the group said. "Our democ­racy has no place for political violence, threats or intimidation of any kind.”

On Tuesday, the FBI notified the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office that postal service investigators had identified what they described as a suspicious envelope that had been delivered to a building housing state offices. The package was intercepted and isolated, according to state officials. No employees from the secretary of the commonwealth’s office had contact with the envelope, which is now in the hands of the FBI.

Packages also were sent to secretaries of state and state election offices in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming this week. The packages forced evacuations in Iowa, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Hazmat crews in several states quickly determined the material was harmless.

The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Elections Division said it received a package similar to those sent to other states. It said its office had been on “high alert” for a potential package and that the state Department of Homeland Security was testing the one received. The division said it has notified county election officials to be on the lookout.

Oklahoma officials said the material sent to the election office there contained flour. Wyoming officials have not yet said if the material sent there was hazardous.

“We have specific protocols in place for situations such as this,” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said in a statement after the evacuation of the six-story Lucas State Office Building in Des Moines. “We immediately reported the incident per our protocols.”

A state office building in Topeka, Kansas, was evacuated due to suspicious mail sent to both the secretary of state and attorney general, Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson April M. McCollum said in a statement.

Topeka Fire Department crews found several pieces of mail with an unknown substance on them, though a field test found no hazardous materials, spokesperson Rosie Nichols said. Several employees in both offices had been exposed to it and had their health monitored, she said.

In Oklahoma, the State Election Board received a suspicious envelope in the mail containing a multi-page document and a white, powdery substance, agency spokesperson Misha Mohr said in an email to The Associated Press. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol, which oversees security for the Capitol, secured the envelope. Testing determined the substance was flour, Mohr said.

State workers in an office building next to the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne were sent home for the day pending testing of a white substance mailed to the secretary of state’s office.

Suspicious letters were sent to election offices and government buildings in at least six states last November, including the same building in Kansas that received suspicious mail Monday. While some of the letters contained fentanyl, even the suspicious mail that was not toxic delayed the counting of ballots in some local elections.

One of the targeted offices was in Fulton County, Georgia, the largest voting jurisdiction in one of the nation’s most important swing states. Four county election offices in Washington state had to be evacuated as election workers were processing ballots cast, delaying vote-counting.

The letters caused election workers around the country to stock up the overdose reversal medication naloxone.

Election offices across the United States have taken steps to increase the security of their buildings and boost protections for workers amid an onslaught of harassment and threats following the 2020 election and the false claims that it was rigged.

LeBlanc reported from Boston. Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta; Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri; Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan; Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

The Oklahoma State Election Board Office inside the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, was one of at least five states in the U.S. which election officials received suspicious packages on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy)

FILE - William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower stands June 22, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

The Oklahoma State Election Board Office inside the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, was one of at least five states in the U.S. which election officials received suspicious packages on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy)

The Oklahoma State Election Board Office inside the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, was one of at least five states in the U.S. which election officials received suspicious packages on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy)

A hazmat crew from the National Guard's Civilian Support Team investigates after a suspicious package was delivered to election officials at the Missouri Secretary of State's Jefferson City, Mo., office on Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Summer Ballentine)