TUNIS, Tunisia, Sept 15, (AP): The official start of the presidential campaign season in Tunisia began on Saturday, a day after Tunisians took their anger to the streets of the capital to decry what protesters say is the deteriorating state of the country.

In what appeared to be the largest protest since authorities began a monthslong wave of arrests earlier this year, hundreds of Tunisians marched peacefully on Friday and called for an end to what they called a police state.

"We’re here to say no and show that we don’t all agree with what’s really happening in the country,” Khaled Ben Abdeslam, a father and urban development consultant, told The Associated Press.

In 2011, longtime Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled by nationwide protests that unleashed revolt across the Arab world. More than a decade later, Ben Abdelslam said he was worried about the growing number of political figures who’ve been thrown in jail under President Kais Saied and said he wants to ensure Tunisia "turns the page” for the good of his kids.

"Nobody dares to say or do anything anymore today,” he said as protesters neared Tunisia’s powerful Interior Ministry. He and other demonstrators slammed both Tunisia’s economic and political woes, carrying signs that grouped together the growing costs of staple items and growing concerns about civil liberties.

"Where is sugar? Where is oil? Where is freedom? Where is democracy?” signs read. Some carried posters telling the government that "human rights are not optional” while others revived the popular slogans that mobilized Tunisia’s masses against Ben Ali. This time though, they directed scorn toward Saied. The protests capped off a week in which the North African country’s largest opposition party, Ennahda, said its senior members had been arrested en masse, at a scale not previously seen.