TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied, who seized wide-ranging powers two years after his 2019 election, on Monday submitted his official candidacy for the country’s upcoming presidential election on October 6.
Saied, 66, told reporters in the capital Tunis that his candidacy was part of “a liberation and self-determination war” set to “establish a new republic.”
Experts say Saied’s challengers face significant constraints in their bid to run for office, while several would-be hopefuls are either in prison or being prosecuted.
But Saied on Monday denied that his government was repressing critical voices, saying that “whoever talks about restrictions is delusional.”
“I did not oppress anyone, and the law applies to everyone equally,” he said. “I am here as a citizen to run for office.”
“We will not accept any foreign party interfering in the choices of our people,” he added.
Saied’s submission came just two days after that of Abir Moussi, a vocal critic of Saied who has been in jail since October.
Other jailed hopefuls include Issam Chebbi, leader of centrist party Al Joumhouri, and Ghazi Chaouchi, head of the social-democratic party Democratic Current, both held for “plotting against the state.”
The two politicians are among more than 20 of Saied’s opponents detained since a flurry of arrests in February 2023.
Last week, four women working on the presidential campaign of rapper turned businessman Karim Gharbi, better known by his stage name K2Rhym, were given jail time for allegedly buying signatures of endorsement.
Three staffers on media personality Nizar Chaari’s campaign have been detained on similar suspicions, which the candidate has categorically denied.
A group of about 30 NGOs denounced on Thursday the “arbitrary detention” of candidates, an electoral authority which has “lost its independence” and “the monopolization of the public space” to bolster Saied’s re-election bid.
“We are in a war of liberation and we don’t want to restrict anyone’s freedoms,” the president said on Monday. “I did not interfere with the judiciary.”
To be listed on the ballot, candidates are required to present a list of signatures from 10,000 registered voters, with at least 500 voter signatures per constituency.
Saied said he collected over 240,000 signatures.
Tunisia president Kais Saied registers election candidacy
https://arab.news/86jy7
Tunisia president Kais Saied registers election candidacy
- President says candidacy part of ‘a liberation and self-determination war’ set to ‘establish a new republic’
- Experts say Kais Saied’s challengers face significant constraints in their bid to run for office
Syrian lawyers demand free bar association elections
- Petition says bar association "must no longer be subordinate to the whims of any ruler"
BEIRUT: Syrian lawyers launched an online petition demanding free elections for their bar association after the country’s new rulers appointed a council to govern the association, a lawyer told AFP Tuesday.
Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime president Bashar Assad earlier this month, ending more than 50 years of his family’s iron-clad rule.
Lawyer Abdulhay Sayed, who signed the petition, told AFP that Syria’s new rulers “appointed a new council” to govern the bar association with “no visibility for the future.”
The petition, seen by AFP, said: “Today, with the collapse of the deposed regime, the bar association must no longer be subordinate to the whims of any ruler.
“It is imperative that it reclaim its rightful role in public life and empower its members to defend the rights of individuals and safeguard society’s existence, even against the most powerful authorities,” it added.
The petition said its councils should not be replaced by “others lacking electoral legitimacy.”
“This approach would simply substitute one form of authoritarianism for another, perpetuating the suppression of the bar’s vital role in oversight and protection of rights,” the statement said.
“At this critical transitional moment, it is essential to organize free and independent elections for the central bar association and its branches across the provinces without delay,” it said.
The petition was signed by about two dozen lawyers mainly based in the Damascus, Homs and Hama areas.
It “aims to restore the bar association’s historical role and its independence,” Sayed told AFP.
The bar had played a leading role in opposing state repression, particularly in the early 1980s, before being muzzled by authorities that imposed their own appointees.
Syria’s new authorities have suspended the constitution and parliament for a three-month interim period and appointed a transitional government to head the country during that time.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa said organizing national elections could take four years and that rewriting the constitution could take two or three years, in a televised interview last week.
Dozens of patients and wounded evacuated from Gaza for treatment
- The 45 patients left the European Hospital in Khan Younis and crossed into Israel
- Patients will be sent to UAE for treatment
Dozens of patients and the wounded have been evacuated for treatment outside the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations says Israel’s attacks on and around hospitals have pushed health care to the brink.
The 45 patients left the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis early Tuesday and traveled through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel, Palestinian health officials said. They will receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates.
Among them was a 10-year-old boy, Abdullah Abu Yousef, suffering from kidney failure. He was accompanied by his sister after the Israeli authorities rejected his mother’s application to join him. Israel says it screens escorts for security.
“The boy is sick,” said his mother, Abeer Abu Yousef. “He requires hemodialysis three to four days a week.”
The Health Ministry says several thousand Palestinians in Gaza need medical treatment abroad. Israel has controlled all entry and exit points since capturing the southern city of Rafah in May. Israel’s offensive, launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack has gutted the territory’s health care system and forced most of its hospitals to close. Those that remain open are only partially functioning.
US strikes Houthi targets in Yemen capital, coast: CENTCOM
- The attacks began Monday and were carried out by US Navy ships and aircraft that also struck Houthi-controlled coastal regions of Yemen
- US Navy and Air Force aircraft had also destroyed “seven cruise missiles and one-way attack UAVs over the Red Sea”
WASHINGTON: The US military said Tuesday its forces had hit Houthi targets in Yemen’s capital that the Iran-backed militia used to attack American warships and commercial vessels.
The attacks began Monday and were carried out by US Navy ships and aircraft that also struck Houthi-controlled coastal regions of Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
It also said US Navy and Air Force aircraft had destroyed “seven cruise missiles and one-way attack UAVs over the Red Sea,” using an acronym for unmanned aerial drones.
“There were no injuries or damage to US personnel or equipment in either incident,” it said.
One witness in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa reported several strikes in different locations.
Another reported raids on Sanaa on the Defense Ministry and having heard a powerful explosion.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam called the strikes “an American aggression” and “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of an independent state and a blatant support for Israel.”
The Houthis said earlier Tuesday that they had fired two missiles at Israel, hours after the Israeli military said it had intercepted a projectile launched from the country.
The Houthis have been firing missiles and drones at Israel, and at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
UN: Gaza healthcare nearing ‘total collapse’ due to Israeli strikes
- ‘Israel’s pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza, and associated combat, pushed the health care system to the brink of total collapse’
GENEVA: A United Nations report published Tuesday found that Israeli strikes on and near hospitals in the Gaza Strip had left health care in the Palestinian territory on the verge of collapse.
The report by the UN human rights office said such strikes raised grave concerns about Israel’s compliance with international law.
“Israel’s pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza, and associated combat, pushed the health care system to the brink of total collapse, with catastrophic effect on Palestinians’ access to health and medical care,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.
Its 23-page report, entitled “Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza,” looked at the period from October 7, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
It said that during this time, there were at least 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, claiming significant casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians and causing significant damage to, if not the complete destruction of, civilian infrastructure.
The report noted that medical personnel and hospitals are specifically protected under international humanitarian law, provided they do not commit, or are not used to commit, acts harmful to the enemy outside their humanitarian function.
It found that Israel’s repeated claims that Gaza hospitals were being improperly used for military purposes by Palestinian groups “vague.”
“Insufficient information has so far been made publicly available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information,” the report said.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Gaza hospitals had become a “death trap.”
“As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” he said.
“The protection of hospitals during warfare is paramount and must be respected by all sides, at all times.”
The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
That resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 45,500 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
The report concluded with a call for credible investigations into the incidents detailed, and said they had to be independent given the “limitations” of Israel’s justice system in respect of the conduct of its armed forces.
“It is essential that there be independent, thorough and transparent investigations of all of these incidents, and full accountability for all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law which have taken place,” said Turk.
“All medical workers arbitrarily detained must be immediately released.
“It must also be a priority for Israel, as the occupying power, to ensure and facilitate access to adequate health care for the Palestinian population, and for future recovery and reconstruction efforts to prioritize the restoration of the medical capacity which has been destroyed over the last 14 months of intense conflict.”
Syria’s new rulers confirm appointment of Murhaf Abu Qasra as defense minister
DUBAI: Syria’s new rulers confirmed the appointment of Murhaf Abu Qasra as defense minister in the new interim government, according to a statement released on Tuesday.
Reuters reported from an official source on Dec. 21 the appointment of Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar Assad.
