TUNIS -

Reactions escalated rejecting the investigative judge's decision to pre-emptively detain former Tunisian Prime Minister and Vice-President of the Ennahda Movement, Ali Al-Arayedh, in what is known as the issue of sending fighters to hotbeds of tension in Syria.

Al-Areedh is one of the most prominent leaders of the first ranks of the Ennahda movement. During the reign of former President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison, of which he spent 11 years in solitary confinement. After the revolution, he assumed the positions of Minister of Interior and Prime Minister.

The investigation with Al-Areedh in the case of deporting young people to flashpoints in Syria was launched on September 19, and included 817 defendants, including the head of the Ennahda Movement, Rashid Ghannouchi, former security officials, imams, businessmen, and others.

Both the former prime minister and the head of the Ennahda movement were interrogated for long hours before the investigative judges, but they were released each time, at a time when the Ennahda Movement described this case as fabricated and fabricated to target its leaders.

Yesterday, Monday, Ali Al-Arayedh was re-interrogated for about 12 hours in the same case, before the investigating judge of the anti-terrorism judicial pole decided to issue a prison deposit card against him.

Ali Al-Arayedh had previously stated on this issue that accusing Ennahda and its leaders of being involved in it is targeting his person and his party for reasons related to ideological hostility and to distract public opinion from the economic and social crisis.

He stressed that when he was prime minister in 2013, he classified the extremist Ansar al-Sharia organization as a terrorist organization, indicating that this organization was involved in terrorist operations and in deporting young people to hotbeds of tension.

Delo described the accusations against Al-Arayedh in what is known as the deportation case as fabricated (European)

Cover up failure

Regarding the arrest of the former prime minister, some on the communication platforms said that the investigative judge who interrogated Al-Arayedh had succumbed to pressure from the authority to deviate from his independence, considering that the reason for imprisoning Al-Arayedh was to cover up the failure of President Qais Saeed in the legislative elections.

While others commented that Al-Areedh's arrest in the deportation file is meaningless, given that his direct personal and criminal responsibility in this file is almost nonexistent because he was prime minister in 2013.

Samir Dilo, the lawyer for the deputy head of the Ennahda Movement, confirms to Al-Jazeera Net that the accusations against his client in what is known as the deportation case are "fabricated", and that the purpose of his imprisonment is to divert attention from what he described as the election scandal.

The Tunisian opposition had mocked the participation rate in the legislative elections, which amounted to 11.22%, which is the weakest ever after the 2011 revolution, and considered this a resounding blow to the project of President Qais Saeed.

Dilo considers that the deportation file does not include any legal evidence against Ali Al-Arayedh, stressing that it is a file that has been inflated in terms of the number of accused without clear evidence, and that its purpose is to target the symbols of the Ennahda movement.

non-independent judiciary

The former deputy of the Dignity Coalition Party, Seif El-Din Makhlouf, told Al-Jazeera Net that the arrest of the prominent leader of the Ennahda movement was a reaction from President Saeed to the popular boycott of the legislative elections.

And he adds, "Instead of the president returning to his senses after the election scandal to open a national dialogue to discuss a solution to the crisis, the leader of the coup authority continues to escape forward by fabricating fabricated judicial files to settle scores with his opponents," as he put it.

Makhlouf believes that the Tunisian judiciary, due to the repeated referral of opponents, is no longer independent and that it is now in the hands of the president and the minister of justice, noting that the president has repeated on many occasions that the judiciary is a function and not an existing authority in itself.

On the other hand, the leader of the opposition Salvation Front, Najib Chebbi, told Al-Jazeera Net that the suspension of the deputy head of the Ennahda movement reflects the "hysterical" state that President Qais Saeed entered after the low percentage of participants in the elections.

Al-Shabi added that the case against Ali Al-Arayedh does not meet the conditions of the ruling equation, stressing that keeping him in a state of reservation is an attempt to abuse him and intimidate the opponents who seek to defend freedom.

The Salvation Front includes opposition parties, the largest of which is the Ennahda movement, which was the most represented in the dissolved parliament. It called for a boycott of the legislative elections that took place last Saturday, while some of the president's supporters accused it of playing a bad role in thwarting the elections.

Ennahda demanded the release of its vice-president, considering that his arrest falls within the policy of defaming the movement's symbols and a desperate attempt by the authority to cover up what it described as the abject failure in the legislative elections that were boycotted by about 90% of the voters.

On the other hand, most political parties did not interact with the issue of Al-Areedh's arrest, and Al-Jazeera Net was unable to obtain statements from them.