Tunisian authorities escalate election season crackdown and arrest Islamists

A person holds a sign during a protest against President of Tunisia Kais Saied, whom demonstrators accuse of trying to rig the October 6 presidential election by detaining and intimidating his rivals, in Tunis, Tunisia, September 13, 2024. (REUTERS)
A person holds a sign during a protest against President of Tunisia Kais Saied, whom demonstrators accuse of trying to rig the October 6 presidential election by detaining and intimidating his rivals, in Tunis, Tunisia, September 13, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 14 September 2024
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Tunisian authorities escalate election season crackdown and arrest Islamists

Tunisian authorities escalate election season crackdown and arrest Islamists
  • The mass arrests are the latest to mar an already turbulent election season in Tunisia

TUNIS, Tunisia: Dozens of members of Tunisia’s largest opposition party were arrested this week ahead of this weekend’s formal start of the campaign season for the country’s presidential election, officials of the Islamist party said Friday.
Ennahda, the 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 countywide sweep.
In a statement, Ennahda called the arrests “an unprecedented campaign of raids and violations of the most basic rights guaranteed by law.”
Former Minister of Youth and Sports Ahmed Gaaloul, a member of the party’s executive committee and adviser to its imprisoned leader Rached Ghannouchi, said the party had counted at least 80 arrests and was in the process of checking at least 108 total. 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. 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.
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 but many of those apprehended this week were previously facing charges, Gaaloul said.
The arrested included many senior 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.
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 on murder charges 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.
 

 


‘Extremely valuable’ secret tomb uncovered in Jordan’s Petra

‘Extremely valuable’ secret tomb uncovered in Jordan’s Petra
Updated 6 sec ago
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‘Extremely valuable’ secret tomb uncovered in Jordan’s Petra

‘Extremely valuable’ secret tomb uncovered in Jordan’s Petra
  • 12 skeletons, hundreds of artifacts recovered as lead archaeologist hails ‘rare’ find
  • Discovery may offer new clues about ancient Arab society

LONDON: Archaeologists have uncovered human remains and hundreds of artifacts in a hidden tomb in Petra, Jordan, The Times reported.

The discovery of the 2,000-year-old underground site could help researchers solve long-running questions over the origins of the ancient city and those who built it.

Located underneath Petra’s Treasury, the tomb contained 12 well-preserved skeletons and hundreds of bronze, iron and ceramic artifacts.

The joint US-Jordanian archaeological team that made the discovery worked underneath the famous edifice, which has been featured in films including “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

Based on the central location of the tomb within the UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is believed to have been commissioned by inhabitants of prominent social standing.

Hundreds more items are expected to be recovered as excavation continues, according to lead archaeologist Dr. Pearce Paul Creasman, executive director of the American Center of Research.

Petra’s Treasury was named as such because of an early theory that it held the treasure of a pharaoh, but most researchers today believe that it was a tomb built by Nabataean King Aretas IV, who ruled from about 9 B.C. to 40 A.D.

This has been supported by the latest discovery, as archaeologists believe the uncovered tomb predates the Treasury.

Creasman said his team dated the hidden tomb to the first century B.C. using luminescence dating, which tracks the last exposure of mineral grains to sunlight. The archaeologists first discovered the tomb using ground-penetrating radar.

The recovery of its contents is a rare event. Many other tombs have been discovered across Petra over the years but most were empty, having been used multiple times throughout the centuries.

“It is rare to find a tomb with human remains in Petra,” Creasman said. “So, when you do find one, that becomes extremely valuable.”

The first historical record of the Nabataean civilization was in 312 B.C. They had repelled an invasion launched by Antigonus, the former general and successor of Alexander the Great who inherited large parts of the Macedonian Empire.

“They just appear in the historical record and then it goes over a hundred years before we read about them in text again, by which time they have this fully fledged society and Petra is being built in the sense that we know it today,” Creasman said.

Little is known of early Nabataean society, though ancient recordings suggest that the civilization was remarkably egalitarian, as there is little difference between noble and common Nabataean tombs.

The discovery of the Petra tomb may offer new clues about the ancient Arab society, including diet and nutrition, Creasman said.

“This is going to help us learn more about a shared, regional past,” he added. “The Nabateans were a multicultural trading society who only worked because they united as a people. I hope they might be able to teach us something today.”


Israeli army says intercepts two drones approaching from Syria

Israeli army says intercepts two drones approaching from Syria
Updated 3 min 5 sec ago
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Israeli army says intercepts two drones approaching from Syria

Israeli army says intercepts two drones approaching from Syria
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it intercepted two drones approaching from Syria on Monday, a day after a drone attack by Lebanon’s Hezbollah on a base killed four soldiers.
“A short while ago, two UAVs that approached Israeli territory from Syria were successfully intercepted by the IAF (air force). The UAVs were intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.
Israel is fighting a war on two fronts, one on its northern border with Lebanon, the other with Hamas in Gaza, while also facing attacks from Iran-backed militants in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Hezbollah has historically relied on its ally Syria to transport arms and other equipment from its main backer Iran.
Israeli authorities rarely comment publicly about individual strikes or operations involving Syria, but have repeatedly said they will not allow Iran to expand its sway over the region.
Last week, the Israeli army said its forces killed a Hezbollah figure inside Syria, Adham Jahout, who was described as an intermediary who “relayed information from Syrian regime sources to the Hezbollah.”
Iran and Hezbollah have been among the Syrian government’s most important allies in the country’s more than decade-old civil war.
On October 30, an Israeli air strike hit a road linking Syria and Lebanon as Israel tried to cut off supply routes of Hezbollah, according to a Syrian war monitor.
That strike came less than a week after Israeli jets struck the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing of Masnaa in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, cutting off the road to traffic.
A deadly strike blamed on Israel on April 1 against Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus levelled the embassy’s consular annex, killing seven Revolutionary Guard members, including two generals.
Nearly two weeks later, Iran launched a wave of missiles and drones at Israel, Tehran’s first-ever direct assault on Israeli territory since the establishment of its Islamic republic in 1979.

Hezbollah targets Israeli naval base after deadly drone strike

Hezbollah targets Israeli naval base after deadly drone strike
Updated 14 October 2024
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Hezbollah targets Israeli naval base after deadly drone strike

Hezbollah targets Israeli naval base after deadly drone strike
  • The group said its fighters launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa

BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli naval base on Monday, a day after a drone strike killed four soldiers in the deadliest attack on Israel since the war in Lebanon began.
The group said its fighters launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa in northern Israel, calling it a tribute to its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had intercepted another launch aimed at a training camp at Binyamina, also near Haifa, a day after four soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded in a Hezbollah drone strike.
On Monday, Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi visited the Golani Brigade’s training camp in Binyamina, and told soldiers: “We are at war, and an attack on a training base on the home front is difficult and the results are painful.”
Israeli volunteer rescue service United Hatzalah said its teams in Binyamina assisted more than 60 people with mild to critical injuries.
Israel and Hezbollah have been at war since Israel intensified its strikes on Lebanon on September 23 and sent ground troops across the border a week later.
Israel has vowed to secure its northern border to allow tens of thousands of people displaced by nearly a year of Hezbollah rocket fire launched. Hezbollah says the rocket fire is in solidarity with its Palestinian ally, Hamas.
The war, which saw an expansion in fighting and air strikes around Lebanon at the weekend, has killed more than 1,300 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
On Sunday, Hezbollah threatened more attacks if Israel’s continues its offensive in Lebanon, warning Israel what it saw was “nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression.”
Escalating violence
In Lebanon, Israel has expanded its air strikes mainly on Hezbollah strongholds, while its troops in south Lebanon have engaged in fierce fighting.
Hezbollah said it shelled Israeli troops inside a southern Lebanese village Monday, after saying it targeted soldiers elsewhere along the border.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Sunday that Israeli forces had escalated air strikes on southern Lebanon, pounding border villages.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israel’s strikes on Saturday killed 51 people, including 16 in Maaysra, a Shiite Muslim village in a Christian-majority area north of Beirut.
In Nabatiyeh, in the south, residents spoke of their shock and grief after its marketplace was hit on Saturday.
“I’m staying here and I will not leave... Nabatiyeh is our mother. It’s heartbreaking to see people’s livelihoods gone,” said Tarek Sadaka, barely holding back tears.
Others have fled the city, with more than one million Lebanese leaving areas that morphed into war zones within weeks.
A UN peacekeeping force deployed in Lebanon since Israel’s 1978 invasion has been thrust onto the front lines of the latest war, with Israel repeatedly calling on it to abandon their positions.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on them to withdraw for their own safety and said their presence had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”
Five United Nations peacekeepers were injured in a series of incidents last week, with the latest seeing the UN force accuse Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions.
The Israeli military later said a tank “backed several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and attempting to evacuate injured soldiers.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said “attacks” against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime.”
Three Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday, the country’s army said, when Israeli forces fired on military vehicles in south Lebanon.
War on Gaza
The war in Lebanon erupted nearly a year after Hamas staged the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the conflict in Gaza.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
The war in Gaza has killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, 42,289 people, the majority civilians. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli shelling late Sunday on a school used as a shelter for displaced people had killed 15 people. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.
“The Al-Mufti school was bombarded with a large volley of Israeli artillery, resulting in an initial death toll of 15 martyrs, including children, women and entire families, and 50 wounded,” said its spokesman, Mahmud Bassal.
Regional tensions
With the wars in Lebanon and Gaza showing no sign of abating, fears of an all-out regional conflict have seen Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas, engage in diplomatic efforts with allies and other powers.
Israel has vowed to retaliate against Iran’s missile strike of October 1, prompting a pledge from Tehran’s side that it would hit back if it is hit.
Iran has, for decades, financed and trained militant groups in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and beyond, but it has yet to enter into direct conflict with its arch enemy, Israel.
On Sunday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to seek support for a Gaza and Lebanon ceasefire, according to the Iranian presidential website.
According to Macron’s office, the French leader appealed to Iran to support “a general de-escalation” in Lebanon and Gaza.
The Pentagon said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from potential Iranian attack.


Second phase of polio vaccination campaign begins in Gaza, WHO says

Second phase of polio vaccination campaign begins in Gaza, WHO says
Updated 14 October 2024
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Second phase of polio vaccination campaign begins in Gaza, WHO says

Second phase of polio vaccination campaign begins in Gaza, WHO says
  • Aid groups carried out a first round of vaccinations last month

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said on X on Monday that the second phase of a polio vaccination campaign had started in central Gaza.
Aid groups carried out a first round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.


Iran top diplomat meets senior Houthi official in Oman

Iran top diplomat meets senior Houthi official in Oman
Updated 14 October 2024
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Iran top diplomat meets senior Houthi official in Oman

Iran top diplomat meets senior Houthi official in Oman
  • Araghchi’s visit to the Omani capital is the latest in a series of diplomatic trips in the region

TEHRAN: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement in Muscat on Monday, according to his office, the latest stop in a wide-ranging diplomatic tour of the region.
The Iranian foreign ministry released pictures of the talks with Mohammed Abdelsalam in the Omani capital as Aranghchi consults with allies and other Middle East powers following Israel’s vow to retaliate against an Iranian missile attack.
Araghchi held a “meeting and discussion with Mohammad Abdelsalam, the spokesman and chief negotiator of the Yemen National Salvation Government,” read the photo caption, referring to the Houthi administration.
The Houthi-run Al Masirah television also reported the meeting without providing any details on the talks.
Araghchi also met with his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi to discuss developments in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip where Israel is fighting Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
They “urged an immediate end to the Israeli regime’s genocide and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon,” said Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei.
Oman’s foreign ministry said the two officials agreed on “harnessing diplomacy as an essential tool for resolving disputes and conflicts” in the region.
Iran fired 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region and a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Israel has since vowed to respond.
Yemen’s Houthis, along with the Palestinian Hamas group in Gaza and Hezbollah, are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” of militant groups arrayed against Israel.
Araghchi’s visit to Muscat came after a trip to Baghdad.
Last week, he visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia where talks mainly revolved around establishing a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza as well as ways to contain the conflict from spreading across the region.
On Sunday, Araghchi reiterated that Iran was “fully prepared for a war situation... but we do not want war, we want peace.”