On Thursday, December 23, 2021, activists from the “Citizens Against the Coup” initiative and politicians, including former President Moncef Marzouki, announced that they would enter a hunger strike, in protest against what they described as “Kais Saied’s coup path.”
In a video clip published by the initiative on its official Facebook page, they presented a number of demands, including the release of imprisoned parliamentarians, the suspension of military trials, and the release of those arrested on December 18 during the sit-in that the initiative carried out on Habib Bourguiba Street.
They also demanded “to stop using the judiciary and the security institution in the political struggle and to silence opponents of Kais Saied, as happened with Moncef Marzouki, and to abandon restrictions, prevent protest movements, ensure freedom of the media and not disrupt access to information and the work of independent national bodies.”
The protesters emphasized that they resorted to the hunger strike to warn the human rights movement nationally and internationally of the danger of what Kais Saied seeks, noting that he “is moving towards establishing his individual rule with populist slogans, taking advantage of the power of the security institution to strike his opponents and impose a fait accompli, closing the box of rights and freedoms permanently.”
For his part, Moncef Marzouki confirmed that he went on hunger strike to protest the judicial verdict issued against him yesterday, and warned in a video he posted on his official Facebook page of the danger of Kais Saied’s project, which threatens democracy, as he put it.
