Tunisia’s President Saied takes unprecedented step in extending state of emergency until 2025
Tunisian President Kais Saied has extended the country’s state of emergency, initiated in November 2015, until the end of this year.
The extension marks the lengthiest period of emergency in Tunisia’s history and the most protracted in the Middle East and North Africa.
Following the 2011 uprising, the state of emergency was lifted only from 2013 to 2015, resuming in response to an increase in terrorist attacks on the country.
North African nations, including Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt, have declared a state of emergency on several occasions in response to popular unrest, natural disasters, or health crises like the Covid-19 pandemic.
But unlike Tunisia’s, they lasted a few months at most.
It is feared the extension could complicate Tunisia’s presidential elections, expected in November.
Since November 2015, Tunisia has renewed its state of emergency every few months.
This decision followed the reinstatement of the state of emergency after a terrorist attack by ISIS on a bus carrying presidential guards.
The attack resulted in the death of 12 guards and injuries to 16 others, including civilians. The legal measure enables authorities to conduct whatever is deemed necessary to protect the country from “imminent danger”.
A 1978 decree allows for the declaration of “a state of emergency throughout all or part of the territory of the Republic, either in the event of imminent danger resulting from a serious violation of public order, or in the event of the occurrence of events that bears the character of a public disaster”.
This procedure broadens the Interior Minister’s jurisdiction, granting him the power to impose a curfew.
It also empowers the imposition of house arrest on people and media censorship.
The law outlines the state of emergency can be prolonged by a maximum of six months at a time, but Mr Saied on Tuesday decided to extend it by 11.