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Tunisia: Police Arrest Three Prominent Officials of Ennahda Party

Security vehicles outside Rached Ghannouchi's house in Tunis. (AFP)
Security vehicles outside Rached Ghannouchi's house in Tunis. (AFP)
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Tunisia: Police Arrest Three Prominent Officials of Ennahda Party

Security vehicles outside Rached Ghannouchi's house in Tunis. (AFP)
Security vehicles outside Rached Ghannouchi's house in Tunis. (AFP)

Tunisian police arrested three prominent officials of the main opposition Ennahda party on Tuesday, hours after they detained party leader Rached Ghannouchi, the most prominent critic of President Kais Saied, a lawyer and officials said.

Lawyer Monia Bouali told Reuters that the officials arrested are Mohamed Goumani, Belkacem Hassan and Mohammed Chnaiba. Officials in Ennahda confirmed the arrests.

Police raided Ennahda party headquarters early on Tuesday and evacuated all present to start a search that will take days, after showing a judicial warrant, party officials said.

Police have this year detained leading political figures who accuse Saied of what they call a coup after closing the elected parliament in 2021 and his move to rule by decree before rewriting the constitution.

The earlier arrests, that have led to charges of conspiring against state security, have drawn statements of concern from the U.S. and rights groups.

An interior ministry official said Ghannouchi had been brought in for questioning and his house searched on the orders of the public prosecutor investigating "inciting statements".

Ghannouchi's lawyers said that they had no idea about the course of investigations.

For its part, the party announced on Monday in a Facebook post that Ghannouchi had been taken to an “unknown destination” without respecting the basic legal procedures and said it “condemns this very dangerous development.”

It demanded releasing him immediately and halting the arrest of opposition politicians.

The statement also urged the “free people” to stand united against these oppressive practices that violate the rights and freedoms of the opposition politicians.

Ghannouchi said in an opposition meeting on Saturday, "Tunisia without Ennahda, without political Islam, without the left, or any other component, is a project for civil war".

The 81-year-old, who was in exile in the 1990s and returned during Tunisia's 2011 revolution that brought democracy, said those who "celebrated the coup are extremists and terrorists".

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In Reverse of a Longtime Stance, US Says UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Isn't Immune from Lawsuits

FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
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In Reverse of a Longtime Stance, US Says UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Isn't Immune from Lawsuits

FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa

The Trump administration has decided that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is not immune from being sued, reversing the US government's longstanding position that the organization was protected from civil liability.
The Justice Department revealed its new stance in a letter it filed in federal court in New York on Thursday as part of a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency, known as UNRWA, accountable for the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on Israel by Hamas. The change in position underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration following allegations by Israel that some of the agency staff was involved in the Hamas rampage.
The lawsuit, filed by families of some of the victims of the massacre, alleges that UNRWA had aided Hamas by, among other things, permitting weapons storage and deployment centers in its schools and medical clinics and by employing Hamas members. Lawyers for UNRWA have called the lawsuit “absurd” and have said in court filings that the agency was immune from liability as a “subsidiary organ” of the United Nations.
The previous US stance protected the agency
In a statement Friday, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said the Justice Department filing reversed the US government's “longstanding recognition that UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and an integral part of the United Nations, entitled to immunity from legal process.” She said the agency would continue to make its case before the court and "will consider whether any other action is appropriate with respect to the letter.”
The Justice Department acknowledged in its 10-page letter that though its position had been that UNRWA was shielded from litigation, “the Government has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation.”
“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers. Of course, such allegations are only the first step on a long road, where plaintiffs will be required to prove what they have alleged. But UNRWA is not above that process — nor are the bulk of the remaining defendants,” the letter states. “The Government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts. The prior Administration’s view that they do not was wrong.”
The letter was signed by Jay Clayton, the new US attorney in Manhattan, and another lawyer in the office, as well as Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's civil division.
The agency has assisted Palestinians since the 1940s
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which followed the establishment of Israel, as well as their descendants, until there is a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The agency provides aid and services — including health and education — to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Since the Israel-Hamas war, it has been the main lifeline for a population reliant on humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Israel alleged that 19 out of UNRWA’s approximately 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in Hamas’ attack in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and set off the war in Gaza.
UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal UN investigation concluded that they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated or corroborated. Israel later alleged that about 100 other Palestinians in Gaza were Hamas members, but never provided any evidence to the United Nations.