Detained Tunisian politician Noureddine Bhiri has been rushed to hospital in a "critical condition", activists and lawmakers said on Sunday.
Bhiri, a 63-year-old former justice minister and deputy president of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party opposed to President Kais Saied, was arrested Friday.
Ennahdha is the largest party in the parliament suspended by Saied in a power grab in July last year.
Bhiri "is in a critical condition, he is in intensive care" at a hospital in the northern town of Bizerte, lawyer and lawmaker Samir Dilou told AFP.
Bhiri "faces death", the anti-Saied group known as "Citizens against the coup" said on Twitter.
"Kais Saied bears full responsibility for the life of Mr. Bhiri," it said, adding that he had been "rushed to the hospital in a very serious condition".
Ennahdha chief Rached Ghannouchi, who is also the speaker of the suspended parliament, released a letter addressed to Tunisia's president demanding urgent information concerning Bhiri's condition, and his release.
Following "the refusal to disclose where he is being held... we stress that it is your responsibility to reveal his current situation," Ghannouchi wrote in the letter published on the Ennahdha website.
He called on Saied "to enable a medical team and lawyers to visit him... and we ask you to urgently release him".
Mondher Ounissi, a doctor and member of Ennahdha's executive bureau, said that Bhiri suffers from several chronic illnesses, including diabetes and hypertension.
He has been "deprived of his medication" and "his life is threatened", Ounissi told a news conference, adding that Bhiri usually takes 16 pills a day.
