Tunisia Jews support president's measures, demand their property back

Jews in Tunisia support the measures being taken by President Kais Saied, Jewish community leader Perez Trabelsi said.

“We do not consider what the President of the Republic, Kais Saied, has done as a coup, and we wish him success in his campaign. We call on him to do a lot of work because that is what the current situation requires,” Trabelsi told the local Akher Khabar website.

Trabelsi went on to call for the restoration of Jewish property in the Tunisian capital. “In the capital, Tunis, there are about 80 per cent of Jews who abandoned their properties without even knowing what became of them. There are others who died without children, all these properties were seized for free.”

Saied has held nearly total power since 25 July when he sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and assumed executive authority citing a national emergency.

He appointed a prime minister on 29 September and a government has since been formed.

The majority of the country’s political parties slammed the move as a “coup against the constitution” and the achievements of the 2011 revolution. Critics say Saied’s decisions have strengthened the powers of the presidency at the expense of parliament and the government, and that he aims to transform the country’s government into a presidential system.

On more than one occasion, Saied, who began a five-year presidential term in 2019, said that his exceptional decisions are not a coup, but rather measures within the framework of the constitution to protect the state from “imminent danger”.

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