Tunisian President Kais Saied on Thursday denounced foreign "interference" following international criticism of a recent arrests of political commentators, lawyers and journalists in the North African country.
Saied, who in 2021 orchestrated a sweeping power grab, ordered the foreign ministry to summon diplomats and "inform them that Tunisia is an independent state".
Speaking during a televised meeting, the president told Mounir Ben Rjiba, state secretary to the foreign ministry, to "summon as soon as possible the ambassadors of a number of countries", without specifying which ones.
Ben Rjiba was asked to "strongly object to them that what they are doing is a blatant interference in our internal affairs".
"Inform them that Tunisia is an independent state that adheres to its sovereignty," Saied added, AFP reported.
"We didn't interfere in their affairs when they arrested protesters... who denounced the war of genocide against the Palestinian people," he added, referring to demonstrations on university campuses in the United States and elsewhere over the Israel-Hamas war.
The European Union on Tuesday expressed concern that Tunisian authorities were cracking down on dissenting voices.
France denounced "arrests, in particular of journalists and members of (non-governmental) associations", while the United States said they were "in contradiction" with "the universal rights explicitly guaranteed by the Tunisian Constitution".
The media union said Wednesday that Decree 54 was "a deliberate attack on the essence of press freedom and a vain attempt to intimidate journalists and media employees and sabotage public debate".
