On Saturday, the Tunisian General Labor Union organized an anti-President Kais Saied protest in the capital, apparently the largest so far, after strict measures taken by the authorities against opponents recently.
Habib Bourguiba Avenue was filled with several thousand protesters who held banners reading: "No to autocracy" and chanted: "The freedoms and liberties of the police state are gone (ended)!"
The march took place after weeks of arrests targeting prominent opponents of Saied, in the first major crackdown since the president unilaterally wielded wide-ranging powers in 2021 when he dissolved parliament and turned to power by issuing decrees.
Noureddine Al-Taboubi, Secretary General of the Labor Union, said in front of the crowds: "We will continue to defend freedoms and all rights, no matter what it costs us. We are not afraid of prisons and arrests."
"I salute the jurists and politicians in Mornaguia prison," he added, referring to those arrested recently.
"The only answer to Said and the creeping dictatorship is the street and protest," Hamma al-Hamami, leader of the Workers' Party, told Reuters. He added, "He wants to spread fear, and the Tunisians are no longer afraid."
President Said's opponents say that he dismantled the democracy brought about by the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, and is destroying the freedoms that were achieved thanks to it.
Said says his measures are legal and necessary to save Tunisia from chaos.
Strict procedures
The UGTT's criticism of Saeed's steps was slow at first, while the political parties described it as a coup, but the influential union began to clearly oppose the president, with Saeed tightening his grip and ignoring the union and other players.
A senior UGTT official was arrested last month for organizing a strike at highway toll stations, prompting the UGTT newspaper to say Saied had declared war on the union and its one million members.
Last week, the Tunisian authorities prevented foreign trade union leaders from entering Tunisia to participate in the march as an expression of solidarity with the Labor Union, and Said said he would not accept foreigners to join the protests.
The size of Saturday's march indicates that the Labor Union remains a formidable opponent that Saied may struggle to brush aside in the wake of poorly-turned-parliamentary elections.
Police have arrested more than a dozen prominent opposition figures over the past few weeks, most of them linked to a coalition of parties and protesters planning Sunday's march, and charged them with plotting against state security.
Those arrested in recent weeks include politicians from Ennahda, once the largest party in the dissolved parliament, leaders of a protest group, the director of Mosaique FM, the country's most important independent media, and a prominent businessman.