Police arrested Abir Moussi, a leading opposition figure and prominent opponent of President Kais Sageant, outside the Tunisian presidential palace on Tuesday, a lawyer and one of her associates said.

“What happened was a kidnapping outside the presidential palace. He is being held in a police station…” said lawyer Nafaa Laribi.

An associate of Moussi said in a video message posted on Facebook that the 48-year-old was “kidnapped” outside the presidential palace in Carthage, on the outskirts of Tunis.

Abir Moussi is the head of the Free Constitutional Party and a supporter of the late president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who fled Tunisia after the 2011 popular uprising that ousted him.

Outside the police station where Musi was taken, dozens of angry supporters of the 48-year-old politician demonstrated chanting slogans against Sagent.

Earlier yesterday, Abir Moussi said in a video message that she went to the presidential palace to lodge an objection regarding the conduct of the upcoming local elections, arguing that this was necessary in order to justify her appeal to the Administrative Court.

The opposition says Sageant, who was elected president of Tunisia in 2019, expanded his powers in a coup in 2021. He maintains that he acted legally and that his actions were necessary to save the country from chaos and corruption.

On Friday, the jailed leader of the Islamic conservative Ennahda party, Rashid Ghannouchi, began a hunger strike in solidarity with other members of his faction who are also in prison.