A number of human rights organizations, trade unions and political parties in Tunisia have been pressuring the newly-elected president to end the state of emergency imposed since November 2015.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the organizations called on President Kais Saied to take a decision in this regard.
According to the constitution, President Saied has the right to sign or reject the emergency extension decision after holding consultations with the premier and parliament speaker.
They urged him to end the state of emergency and not exploit it to infringe on inpidual and public freedoms.
The state of emergency is set to expire on December 31.
The protesting parties demanded that parliament “expedite the establishment of the Constitutional Court, enact a basic law to regulate the state of emergency and specify the exceptional cases in which it is imposed without affecting inpidual and collective rights and freedoms.”
Saied, a 61-year-old constitutional law expert, had earlier declared that the state of emergency represents a breach of the 2014 constitution.
“A set of objective conditions are required to announce the state of emergency, the most important of which is an imminent threat to the homeland’s entity and the normal functioning of the state institutions,” he said.
Earlier in August, then-interim president, Mohamed Ennaceur, decided to extend the state of emergency to the end of this year.
The extension of the state of emergency, from Sept. 3 to Dec. 31, was published in the Official Gazette.
The state of emergency in Tunisia was first declared on Nov. 24, 2015, following a suicide bombing attack on a bus carrying the presidential guards, killing 12 of them.
The Tunisian emergency law grants the authorities exceptional powers, including carrying out home arrests, banning official meetings, imposing curfews, monitoring media and press, prohibiting assemblies, and media censorship without prior permission from the judiciary.
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