Tunisia’s Ghannouchi Starts 3-Day Hunger Strike in Prison

FILE PHOTO: Tunisia's Rached Ghannouchi is surrounded by presidential guard members upon his arrival for questioning after he was summoned by Tunisian anti-terrorism police in Tunis, Tunisia April 1, 2022. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Tunisia's Rached Ghannouchi is surrounded by presidential guard members upon his arrival for questioning after he was summoned by Tunisian anti-terrorism police in Tunis, Tunisia April 1, 2022. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo
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Tunisia’s Ghannouchi Starts 3-Day Hunger Strike in Prison

FILE PHOTO: Tunisia's Rached Ghannouchi is surrounded by presidential guard members upon his arrival for questioning after he was summoned by Tunisian anti-terrorism police in Tunis, Tunisia April 1, 2022. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Tunisia's Rached Ghannouchi is surrounded by presidential guard members upon his arrival for questioning after he was summoned by Tunisian anti-terrorism police in Tunis, Tunisia April 1, 2022. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo

Jailed Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi has begun a three-day hunger strike in support of other imprisoned opposition figures, his Ennahda party said on Friday.

Ghannouchi, 82, was sentenced to a year in jail in May on charges of incitement and plotting against state security. More than 20 other opposition figures have been detained this year.

An Ennahda party statement said its leader had launched the three-day action to support fellow jailed opposition figures who are protesting at what they say is unjust imprisonment.

Jawher Ben Mbarak, a prominent opposition figure who has been detained for more than seven months, began an open-ended hunger strike this week, arguing that his jailing was politically motivated.

President Kais Saied has called his critics criminals, traitors and terrorists and warned that any judge who freed them would be considered to be abetting them.

Ghannouchi was parliament speaker from the 2019 election and his party was the biggest in the legislature until Saied sent tanks to shut it down in 2021.



Israeli Strikes Cause Damage to Bridges in Syria’s Homs Province, State Media Says

A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)
A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Cause Damage to Bridges in Syria’s Homs Province, State Media Says

A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)
A man rides a motorbike past a damaged building in Homs, Syria November 7, 2024. (Reuters)

Syrian state media reported damage to several bridges in the Qusayr countryside of Homs province, attributing it to an Israeli attack on Monday.

Earlier, blasts were heard in and around Qusayr, a town in the southern Homs province, and authorities had said they were investigating the cause.

The Israeli military earlier on Monday confirmed a series of strikes targeting what they said were Iranian weapons smuggling routes through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, adding that the operations disrupted efforts to transfer arms via Syrian territory.