Opposition leader jailed for 12 years

A Tunisian court has sentenced prominent opposition leader Abir Moussi to 12 years in prison amid a sweeping crackdown on critics of President Kais Saied, who has said he is cleansing the North African country of ‘traitors’, according to Al Jazeera. Lawyer Nafaa Laribi, who represented Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party, in her third trial in two years, called Friday’s ruling ‘unjust’, saying that it was ‘not a judicial decision but a politically motivated order’. In a statement released before the verdict, the Free Destourian Party condemned ‘the injustice suffered by Moussi, who has been arbitrarily detained since 3 October 2023’. Moussi’s party has organised protests against President Saied, who came to power in 2019, shutting down the elected Parliament in 2021 and moving to rule by decree. The opposition leader was imprisoned in 2023 after police arrested her at the presidential palace entrance on suspicion of assault intended to cause chaos, amid a broader crackdown on journalists, activists, civil society groups and opposition leaders. Moussi rejected the charges, saying she was simply exercising her right to criticise and legal opposition and promising to continue resisting what she called ‘abuse, torture, and Friday’s sentence was in connection with that incident’. Previously, the politician had been sentenced to two years in prison under Decree 54, a law Saied enacted in 2022 to combat ‘false news’, though the punishment was later reduced on appeal. After completing her first jail term last June, Moussi was sentenced again under the same law to two years in prison. The appeal process in that case is still under way.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people demonstrated on Saturday in the Tunisian capital against the government under the slogan ‘opposition is not a crime’, calling for the release of jailed activists, reports France24. The rally in Tunis was called after the recent arrests of three opposition figures convicted of ‘conspiracy’ against the state. Tunisia emerged from the Arab Spring era of revolts as a democracy but, after Saied staged a sweeping power grab in 2021, rights groups have criticised a major rollback on freedoms. Dozens of Saied's critics have been prosecuted or jailed. ‘Since the coup, things have changed completely. We've seen our freedoms taken away gradually, even though we did have a revolution, said Hager Chebbi, daughter of opposition figure Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, among those recently arrested. Amnesty International said the trial and Chebbi's arrest were part of the authorities' ‘blind and repressive escalation’ in cracking down on dissenting voices. ‘Fifteen years after the revolution, it is as if dictatorship has officially marked its return,’ Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa spokesman Ahmed Benchemsi told AFP.