Tunisia opposition figure decries travel ban

The leader of a Tunisian opposition party and prominent critic of President Kais Saied announced Wednesday he had been barred from leaving the country, without any prior notice.

"This morning at Tunis-Carthage airport, I was prevented from leaving Tunisian territory without having been notified beforehand of any judicial decision," Fadhel Abdelkefi, head of the centre-right Afek Tounes party, wrote on Twitter.

#بيان تنديد لمنع رئيس الحزب من السفر

⚫️🔴 إثر منع السيّد #فاضل_عبد_الكافي، رئيس حزب آفاق تونس صباح اليوم من السفر بمطار تونس قرطاج يعبّر حزب #آفاق_تونس عن: pic.twitter.com/iygNT2TokW

— Fadhel Abdelkefi (@FadhelAbdelkefi) November 16, 2022

A statement from the party called the move against the former development minister "a violation of basic and constitutional freedoms".

"This illegal measure is further proof of the growth of political domination and the accelerated deviation of President Kais Saied's regime towards dictatorship," the statement read.

Afek Tounes has been a principal opponent of Saied, whose dramatic power grab in July last year prompted accusations he was seeking to restore an autocracy in Tunisia, a decade after a revolution that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.

Afek Tounes said Abdelkefi's travel ban was "repressive," showing that "state institutions are being instrumentalised to suppress the opposition and target political figures."

The interior ministry told AFP it was not aware of the case.

Opposition parties and civil society activists have accused Tunisia's security services of resorting to methods reminiscent of those of former dictator Ben Ali.