The Middle East Democracy Center (MEDC) strongly condemns Saturday’s unjust mass sentencing of 40 opposition politicians, business leaders, human rights defenders, and lawyers to prison terms ranging from 13 to 66 years. For many of those convicted, the ruling is essentially a death sentence.

On Saturday, April 19, the Tunis Court of First Instance convicted the individuals on fabricated charges including “conspiracy against state security” and attempting to “change the nature of the State,” following an unfair trial marred by widespread due process violations. Several of the defendants were held in prison well beyond Tunisia’s legal maximum of 14 months of pretrial detention. 

“Saturday’s harsh verdicts, including decades-long sentences, show how far President Kais Saied is willing to go to maintain his power and silence any form of peaceful dissent,” said Sara Mohamed, Unjust Detention manager at MEDC. “Tunisian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release all those unfairly sentenced and stop prosecuting individuals for peacefully exercising their freedom of expression.” 

Those sentenced on Saturday include National Salvation Front leaders Jaouher Ben Mbarek, Issam Chebbi, and Ghazi Chaouachi, who each received 18 years in prison, as well as Khayyam Turki, a writer and opposition figure who helped organize peaceful opposition to Saied’s 2021 power grab, received 48 years in prison. Ennahdha party figures Noureddine Bhiri and Sahbi Atig were also sentenced to 43 and 13 years in prison, respectively. Tunisian businessman Kamel Ltaif was sentenced to 66 years in prison. 

Said Ferjani, a 70-year-old former member of parliament and member of the Ennahda party, received a 13-year prison sentence. According to his daughter, before Ferjani was added as a defendant to this case, he was questioned for just 15 minutes about his phone number being found on another defendant’s phone. Ferjani’s sentencing comes on the heels of another unfounded 13-year sentence he received in a separate case against him in February, increasing the likelihood that Ferjani will spend the rest of his life behind bars if these sentences stand.  

In a further escalation, Ahmed Souab, a lawyer for some of the defendants and a vocal critic of Saied, was arrested on Monday after criticizing the verdicts and on Wednesday, a court ordered him detained on terrorism charges.  

These verdicts, and Souab’s arrest, represent a dangerous escalation in Saied’s ongoing crackdown on dissent. Since his sweeping power grab in July 2021, Saied has systematically undermined the judiciary to strengthen his grip on power. Authorities have arbitrarily arrested anyone perceived to be critical of the government, and routinely used Saied’s 2022 cybercrime decree and the 2015 counterterrorism law to target political opponents. In October, Saied was reelected president of Tunisia, which was neither free nor fair, after months of rampant repression of his political opponents, the press, and civil society. Unfortunately, as this weekend’s verdicts demonstrate, since securing a second term Saied has refused to ease his crackdown or allow Tunisians to exercise their rights to free expression, association, and assembly.

 

Photo credit: Tunisian Presidency/Facebook