With just three weeks to go before Tunisia’s presidential and parliamentary elections, the Ettajdid Movement (one of the permitted opposition political parties) is complaining that half of its parliamentary candidate lists have been rejected by the authorities “without any convincing legal justification”.

Ettajdid, which currently holds three seats in parliament, had been hoping to contest all 26 electoral districts but now the number has been reduced to just 13. This leaves President Ben Ali’s Democratic Constitutional Rally as the only party with approved lists in all districts.

Ettajdid says the rejected the lists were mosty in the major cities (Tunis, Sfax, Monastir) and heavily populated areas or those "having a symbolic value in political terms".

Meanwhile, the Chakchouka Tunisienne blog (in French) reports that Hamma Hammami, the Communist Party spokesman and husband of rights activist Radhia Nasraoui, was beaten up by police at Tunis airport on Tuesday. He was returning from Paris where he had called for a boycott of the presidential election and had been interviewed by al-Jazeera and France 24.

After passing through customs, Hammami says he was hit on the face and kicked.

They also broke my glasses. As I screamed, they locked me in an office and continued to beat me and insulted al-Jazeera and France 24. They then confiscated personal papers and 345 euros that I had in my wallet. I left the airport and the police followed me for 200 metres, insulting me and my wife.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 4 October 2009.