Attacker reportedly first shot dead colleague and stole ammunition before heading towards synagogue

A police officer killed three other police and two visitors near Africa’s oldest synagogue, the Tunisian government has said, amid an annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba that draws hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel.

The officer at a naval installation in Djerba shot a colleague and seized his ammunition on Tuesday and headed towards the Ghriba synagogue, the Tunisian interior ministry said.

Police close headquarters of main opposition coalition as fears mount party will be banned

Tunisian authorities have banned meetings at all offices of the opposition Ennahda Islamist party and police have closed the headquarters of the Salvation Front main opposition coalition.

Ennahda fears the move will pave the way for banning the party. It came a day after police detained the leader of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, the most prominent critic of President Kais Saied and three senior officials, the party said.

Ennahdha party’s Rached Ghannouchi, 81, is at least the 20th person to be held in recent months in crackdown by Kais Saied

Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Ennahda political party and one of the main opponents of the Tunisian president, Kais Saied, has been arrested, the latest in a string of opposition figures held.

Ghannouchi, 81, whose party was the largest in parliament before Saied dissolved the chamber in July 2021, was arrested by police at his Tunis home and taken “to an unknown location”, the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha said in a statement.

Nizar Issaoui, 35, died in hospital after protest against ‘police state’ running country, says brother

A professional footballer in Tunisia has died after setting himself alight earlier this week in what he called a protest against the “police state” ruling the country, his brother said.

Nizar Issaoui, 35, suffered third-degree burns from his action in the village of Haffouz in the central region of Kairouan, his brother Ryad said.

Daughter of Said Ferjani, who lived in UK for more than 20 years, says he has been falsely imprisoned and asks MPs to intervene

Britain is being urged to help protect the last vestiges of the Arab spring by calling for the release of Said Ferjani, the leading Tunisian politician who has been thrown into prison as part of an effort to silence the critics of the country’s increasingly authoritarian president.

Ferjani, 68, lived in the UK in political exile for more than two decades before returning for Tunisia’s democratic awakening in 2011.

Jaouhar Ben M’barek is most prominent opposition figure to be rounded up in president’s campaign of detentions

Tunisian security forces have arrested Jaouhar Ben M’barek, the most prominent opposition figure to be rounded up in an escalating campaign of detentions targeting rivals of the president, Kais Saied.

“Jaouhar was arrested late last night and we haven’t seen the charges against him,” his sister Dalila Msaddek, a lawyer, told AFP on Friday.