{"id":34666,"date":"2026-05-17T09:16:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=34666"},"modified":"2026-05-17T09:16:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:16:35","slug":"tunisians-protest-against-saied-over-arrests-economic-strain","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/tunisians-protest-against-saied-over-arrests-economic-strain\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisians protest against Saied over arrests, economic strain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Tunisians protested in the capital Tunis on Saturday against President \u200bKais Saied, accusing him of undermining \u200cfreedoms and presiding over a worsening economic and social crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The protest was held under the slogan: &#8220;The people are hungry \u200band prisons are full&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Demonstrators called for \u200ban end to one-man rule and carried banners denouncing arrests of politicians, journalists and civil society figures, amid concerns of \u2060a widening crackdown on dissent.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters also criticised what they \u200bsaid was Saied&#8217;s failure to tackle the economic crisis, while using the judiciary \u200band police to silence critics.<\/p>\n<p>Tunisia is facing acute economic strain, with sluggish growth, soaring prices, shortages of medicines and \u200bsome food, financing pressures, and deteriorating public \u200bservices.<\/p>\n<p>Saied, who dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree \u200cin \u20602022, has faced mounting criticism from rights groups over what they say is the dismantling of the post-2011 democratic system.<\/p>\n<p>Saied rejects those accusations, saying his \u200bmeasures are necessary \u200bto \u2060save the country from chaos and corruption.<\/p>\n<p>The bar association has called \u200bfor strikes in coming days over \u200berosion \u2060of judicial independence, while the journalists&#8217; union plans protests against the jailing of journalists and \u2060restrictions \u200bon press freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say they \u200bare enforcing the law and reject accusations of political \u200brepression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23239,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-34666","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The protest was held under the slogan: \"The people are hungry \u200band prisons are full\".","published_date":"","news_description":"The protest was held under the slogan: \"The people are hungry \u200band prisons are full\".","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34667,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34666\/revisions\/34667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}