Impossible to believe Tunisia's claims on democracy, says US senator

Recent moves by Tunisian President Kais Saied to dissolve the country’s Supreme Judicial Council indicate how the state is plunging into tyranny, the Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, Christopher Murphy, said yesterday.

“It’s becoming impossible to believe President Saied’s claims that he is committed to transitioning his country back to democracy,” Murphy said in a statement.

On Saied’s recent pledges to turn around the economy around and root out corruption, the US official stressed that Tunisia could not “successfully do that without the international community’s financial support.”

“We need to make clear that support is linked to a democratic course correction,” he stressed, adding that the president’s ambitions are “admirable goals that the Tunisian people have long demanded.”

On Sunday, Tunisian President Kais Saied said that he decided to dissolve the country’s Supreme Judicial Council amid tension with the judiciary. Authorities then closed the council’s headquarters and banned employees from entering the premises.

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