Tunisia declares state of emergency, steps up its powers, after terror attacks

The coffin of Christopher Dyer is carried in Brize Norton, England, on Friday after arriving on a Royal Air Force plane that repatriated the bodies of five British nationals killed in a terrorist attack in Tunisia on June 26. (WPA Pool / Getty Images)Tunisia declared a state of emergency Saturday, eight days after a gunman slaughtered dozens of foreign tourists at a Mediterranean beach resort.

The move, which gives the government stepped-up powers to deal with suspected terrorists but also curtails to a degree the rights of ordinary citizens, marks an unhappy juncture in what had perhaps been the only real success story to emerge from the 2011 uprisings that were collectively dubbed the Arab…