Tunisian President Kais Saied stressed the need to find pure Tunisian solutions to the country's economic and social challenges, while a judge opened investigations against prominent figures on charges of conspiring against state security.
During his meeting with a number of university professors in economic sciences, Saeed renewed his country's rejection of any dictation from abroad, as he put it.
He also stressed his rejection of neglecting public sector institutions, whether education, health or transportation, because they are human rights and not only citizens' rights, as he described.
New investigations
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted lawyer Nadia Chaouachi as saying that a judge had opened new investigations involving prominent political figures, including former Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, the former director of President Saied's office, and Ennahda leader and dissolved parliament speaker Rached Ghannouchi, on suspicion of conspiring against state security.
The case follows a wave of arrests of opposition figures over the past few months that Saied's critics have attacked as a political campaign aimed at silencing dissent, and has raised fears by rights activists of a new wave of arrests.
Chaouachi said that the list of suspects in the case also includes Mohamed Rayan al-Hamzaoui, former mayor of the municipality of Zahra in Tunis, a retired military officer, and journalist Scheherazade Okacha.
Ghannouchi, 81, was among the most prominent political figures, as his Ennahda party played a role in successive governments during the democratic period after the 2011 revolution.
He was sentenced this month to a year in prison for inciting against police officers, and Ghannouchi, one of Saied's most prominent opponents, is being prosecuted in nearly six cases, and police arrested him at his home last month on suspicion of conspiring against state security.
Chahed was prime minister from 2016 to 2020 and is one of the candidates who lost to Saied in the 2019 presidential election.
Okasha was seen as Saied's closest confidant until she left his office chief last year and moved to France before leaked audio recordings emerged harshly critical of the president.