Press banned from opening session of new Tunisian parliament

Independent media barred from building to avoid ‘disorder’, as president deepens autocratic grip

Independent and foreign journalists have been barred from attending the first session of Tunisia’s new parliament, which has been largely stripped of its powers by the country’s increasingly autocratic president.

The ban on journalists entering the parliament building is the first since the revolution that ousted the late dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.