TUNIS: A legal expert charged with writing a new constitution presented a draft to Tunisian President Kais Saied Monday, less than a month before a referendum on the document.
The planned referendum is set for July 25, the one year anniversary of a power grab by Saied that saw him sack the government and suspend an elected parliament.
Sadeq Belaid, the legal expert appointed to head a committee drafting the new document, handed the draft to the president at his palace in the coastal Tunis district of Carthage.
“We hope (it) will satisfy the president,” Belaid said in a video published by the presidency following their meeting.
In a statement, Saied said the draft “is not final, and some sections may be revised or given further thought.”
Under his own timeline, Saied has until June 30 to approve or edit the draft constitution, which has not yet been disclosed in any form to the public.
The constitution for a “new republic” is at the center of Saied’s program for rebuilding Tunisia’s political system, more than a decade after the revolution that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.
Saied this year consolidated his power grab by dissolving parliament, moving to rule by decree and seizing control of the judiciary.
His moves have been welcomed by some Tunisians tired of their dysfunctional post-revolution democracy, but others have warned he is returning the country to autocracy, little more than a decade after the ouster of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Saied wants to replace the current constitution, the product of a hard-won 2014 compromise between bitter political rivals that enshrined a mixed parliamentary-presidential system that often produced deadlock.
Tunisian Bar president Ibrahim Bouderbala, who headed a committee taking part in Saied’s “national dialogue” over the constitution, told AFP that under the draft, “the president of the republic will control the executive.”
The draft also “takes particular interest in economic questions,” he said.
Belaid had told AFP in an interview earlier this month that he would remove all reference to Islam from the new document in order to challenge Islamist parties, a reference to Ennahdha, which has dominated Tunisian politics since 2011.
![]()
Tunisia president receives draft constitution
Short Url
https://arab.news/gz38z
Tunisia president receives draft constitution
- The new constitution is the centrepiece of reform plans by Saied which is set to go to referendum on July 25
Trump tells Iranians ‘help on its way’
- US president says Iranians should 'keep protesting' and that he canceled all meetings with Iranian officials
- Successive nights of mass protests nationwide may have killed thousands, NGO says
PARIS: US President Donald Trump urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting against the country’s theocratic leadership, telling them “help is on its way” as international outrage grows over a crackdown one rights group said has likely killed thousands.
Iranian authorities insisted they had regained control after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since Thursday that have posed one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.
Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an Internet blackout that has now lasted almost five days.
New videos on social media, whose location AFP verified, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.
International phone links were restored on Tuesday, but only for outgoing calls, according to an AFP journalist, and the quality remains spotty, with frequent interruptions.
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention, said Iranians should continue their nationwide protests, take over institutions and record the names of “killers and abusers.”
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “I have canceled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
It was not immediately clear what meetings he was referring to or what the nature of the help would be.
European nations also signalled their anger, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the countries that summoned their Iranian ambassadors to protest what French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called “state violence unquestioningly unleashed on peaceful protesters.”
“The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, vowing further sanctions against those responsible.
- ‘In the thousands’ -
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.
“The figures we publish are based on information received from fewer than half of the country’s provinces and fewer than 10 percent of Iran’s hospitals. The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” the director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
Fears have also grown that the Islamic republic could use the death penalty to crack down on the protests after Tehran prosecutors said Iranian authorities will press capital charges of “moharebeh,” or “waging war against God,” against some suspects arrested over recent demonstrations.
“Concerns are mounting that authorities will once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent,” Amnesty International said.
IHR highlighted the case of Erfan Soltani, 26, who was arrested last week in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj and who, according to a family source, has already been sentenced to death and is due to be executed as early as Wednesday.
Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. Authorities have declared three days of national mourning for those killed.
Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran.
“On Thursday night, my friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighborhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.
‘Last days’
The government on Monday sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated, calling them a “warning” to the United States.
In power since 1989 and now 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which resulted in the killing of top security officials and forced him to go into hiding.
“When a regime can only hold on to power through violence, then it is effectively finished,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a trip to India. “I believe that we are now witnessing the last days and weeks of this regime.”
Analysts, however, have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership has, including the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which are charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.
“These protests arguably represent the most serious challenge to the Islamic republic in years, both in scale and in their increasingly explicit political demands,” Nicole Grajewski, professor at the Sciences Po Center for International Studies in Paris, told AFP.
She said it was unclear if the protests would unseat the leadership, pointing to “the sheer depth and resilience of Iran’s repressive apparatus.”
Iranian authorities insisted they had regained control after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since Thursday that have posed one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.
Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an Internet blackout that has now lasted almost five days.
New videos on social media, whose location AFP verified, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.
International phone links were restored on Tuesday, but only for outgoing calls, according to an AFP journalist, and the quality remains spotty, with frequent interruptions.
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention, said Iranians should continue their nationwide protests, take over institutions and record the names of “killers and abusers.”
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “I have canceled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
It was not immediately clear what meetings he was referring to or what the nature of the help would be.
European nations also signalled their anger, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the countries that summoned their Iranian ambassadors to protest what French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called “state violence unquestioningly unleashed on peaceful protesters.”
“The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, vowing further sanctions against those responsible.
- ‘In the thousands’ -
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.
“The figures we publish are based on information received from fewer than half of the country’s provinces and fewer than 10 percent of Iran’s hospitals. The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” the director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
Fears have also grown that the Islamic republic could use the death penalty to crack down on the protests after Tehran prosecutors said Iranian authorities will press capital charges of “moharebeh,” or “waging war against God,” against some suspects arrested over recent demonstrations.
“Concerns are mounting that authorities will once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent,” Amnesty International said.
IHR highlighted the case of Erfan Soltani, 26, who was arrested last week in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj and who, according to a family source, has already been sentenced to death and is due to be executed as early as Wednesday.
Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. Authorities have declared three days of national mourning for those killed.
Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran.
“On Thursday night, my friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighborhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.
‘Last days’
The government on Monday sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated, calling them a “warning” to the United States.
In power since 1989 and now 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which resulted in the killing of top security officials and forced him to go into hiding.
“When a regime can only hold on to power through violence, then it is effectively finished,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a trip to India. “I believe that we are now witnessing the last days and weeks of this regime.”
Analysts, however, have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership has, including the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which are charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.
“These protests arguably represent the most serious challenge to the Islamic republic in years, both in scale and in their increasingly explicit political demands,” Nicole Grajewski, professor at the Sciences Po Center for International Studies in Paris, told AFP.
She said it was unclear if the protests would unseat the leadership, pointing to “the sheer depth and resilience of Iran’s repressive apparatus.”
Latest updates
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.