The spokesperson for the Kasserine courts, Riad Nwiwi, confirmed on Wednesday, August 21, 2024, that the public prosecutor of the Kasserine Primary Court ordered on Tuesday, August 20, the detention of political activist Safi Saïd, who had announced his withdrawal from the presidential elections in Tunisia, and his companion for illegally crossing the land border into a neighboring country.
Nwiwi explained in a statement to the official Tunisian news agency that the detention took place after Algerian security authorities handed them over to Tunisian security units, without providing further details.
According to the same source, Safi Saïd had previously been sentenced in absentia to four months in prison in a complaint filed against him by the Electoral Commission, for allegedly forging popular endorsements during his candidacy in the 2014 presidential elections.
Facebook activists shared a security document related to “the arrest of politician Safi Saïd by Algerian authorities as he crossed the Tunisian-Algerian border clandestinely, after infiltrating into Algerian territory from Douar Sidi Zahir, Boudrias village, Foussana delegation, in the Kasserine governorate, near border markers 206 and 207.”
It is noted that Safi Saïd “was arrested by Algerian security authorities in the village of Bouchebka, Tébessa governorate, awaiting transfer to the Houeiguiat municipality, M’Doukel district, to take the necessary measures,” according to the same source.
Writer and political activist Safi Saïd had confirmed his withdrawal from the presidential race after being informed by the Electoral Commission “a day after submitting his candidacy file that the file did not meet the required conditions on two points: the criminal record certificate (file No. 3) and the popular endorsements (insufficient) after being counted by the Commission in the absence of any neutral supervisory body.”
In a statement posted on his official Facebook page on Friday, August 9, 2024, Safi Saïd said: “The opportunities are not equal, the barriers are very high, the keys and rules of the game are unclear… I was about to participate in setting up a very short and very bad play (one-man show), which we should never have accepted from the start,” he said.
It is noteworthy that the Electoral Commission announced, on the evening of Saturday, August 10, 2024, that only 3 candidacies were accepted out of the 17 files submitted during the period allocated by the Commission for registration in the presidential elections scheduled for October 6, 2024.
In response to the first-instance rulings issued by the administrative court, which can be appealed according to the court’s spokesperson, several candidates whose files were initially rejected by the Electoral Commission expressed their intention to appeal these rulings and present them to the plenary session of the administrative court.
According to the Commission’s electoral calendar, the announcement of the final list of accepted candidates, after the expiration of litigation and appeal deadlines, will be made by no later than September 3.
Editorial Team ✍🏼