The Tunisian Brotherhood Anticipates Conspiracies Against the Country and Launches a New Maneuver… What Is It?
In a new maneuver by the Muslim Brotherhood, leaders of the Salvation Front, who have been imprisoned since February 2023 in a case involving conspiracy against national security and planning to overthrow the regime, have begun a hunger strike to demand their release, claiming they are “prisoners of conscience.”
The leader of the Islamic Salvation Front and constitutional law professor, Jawhar Ben Mbarek, began a hunger strike on Friday, joined today by Salvation Front member Issam Chebbi.
This marks the fourth time that Front leaders have gone on a hunger strike since their imprisonment, in attempts to export the crisis to the streets, especially with the conclusion of investigations into the conspiracy case and the nearing issuance of judgment in this case, which carries the death penalty.
Tunisian political analyst Omar Al-Yefrani believes that the conclusion of the investigations and the nearing issuance of judgment in this case prompted Ben Mbarek and Chebbi to embark on a hunger strike, and that other political prisoners, numbering six, will join them.
He affirmed that “the investigations proved the involvement of these politicians in a conspiracy case against state security, with evidence and testimonies,” clarifying that they “are not prisoners of conscience as they claim, but their goal was to get rid of the president with the help of internal hands in the Carthage Palace, as shown by the investigations.”
He emphasized that “these two leaders, in particular, were opposed to the Brotherhood’s regime, but overnight, they became members of the Salvation Front and in the Brotherhood’s camp, planning the overthrow of the regime.”
He added that “the Brotherhood launched their maneuvers, hoping for a last refuge that would save them from accountability, after all their hopes were dashed and the pronouncement of judgment approaches,” noting that “Ben Mbarek and Issam Chebbi’s hunger strike aims to create a crisis in Tunisia, this strike will encompass all prisoners in the case of the conspiracy against state security.”
Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed affirmed that some politicians who previously claimed to oppose the Brotherhood are now allied with them, stating: “They rushed as if the state was loot to be shared… They exchanged accusations in a ridiculous spectacle and hurled insults everywhere, calling one individual a murderer, and now they find themselves together in a hunger strike.”
Jawhar Ben Mbarek is one of the leaders of the Salvation Front who held the Ennahdha movement responsible, in 2013, for the assassination of Tunisian politician Chokri Belaid, stating at the time: “The Ennahdha movement has morally and politically fallen in the eyes of Tunisians since the assassination of the late Chokri Belaid,” adding: “Ennahdha fell in Tunisia before the Muslim Brotherhood fell in Egypt.” He added: “The scenario of the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt through a popular revolution is not far from present-day Tunisia.”
As for Issam Chebbi, who held a parliamentary position in the Constituent Assembly during a parliamentary session, he affirmed in May 2013 that terrorism did not start with the explosion of mines and explosive devices in Mount Chaambi, but its origin dates back to the reception of the ruling party, Ennahdha, to takfiri preachers and incitement to violence.”
