Sonia Dhamani, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, has criticised him for practices in opposition to refugees and migrants.
A Tunisian court docket has sentenced Sonia Dhamani, a distinguished lawyer and famend critic of President Kais Saied, to 2 years in jail, legal professionals have mentioned, in a case that rights teams say marks a deepening crackdown on dissent within the North African nation.
Dhamani’s legal professionals withdrew from the trial after the choose refused to adjourn the session on Monday, claiming Dhamani was being tried twice for a similar act.
The court docket sentenced Dhamani for statements criticising practices in opposition to refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
Lawyer Bassem Trifi mentioned the decision was “a grave injustice”.
“What’s taking place is a farce. Sonia is being tried twice for a similar assertion,” mentioned lawyer Sami Ben Ghazi, one other lawyer for Dhamani.
Dhamani was arrested final yr after making feedback throughout a tv look that questioned the federal government’s stance on undocumented African refugees and migrants in Tunisia.
The case was introduced underneath the nation’s controversial cybercrime regulation, Decree 54, which has been broadly condemned by worldwide and native rights teams.
Most opposition leaders, some journalists, and critics of Saied have been imprisoned since Saied seized management of most powers, dissolved the elected parliament, and commenced ruling by decree in 2021 – strikes the opposition has described as a coup.
Saied rejects the fees and says his actions are authorized and geared toward ending years of chaos and rampant corruption.
Human rights teams and activists say Saied has turned Tunisia into an open-air jail and is utilizing the judiciary and police to focus on his political opponents.
Saied rejects these accusations, saying he is not going to be a dictator and seeks to carry everybody accountable equally, no matter their place or title.
Earlier this yr, the nation carried out a mass trial wherein dozens of defendants had been handed jail terms of up to 66 years. Critics denounced the trial as politically motivated and baseless.
The defendants confronted expenses together with “conspiracy in opposition to state safety” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, based on their legal professionals.
Amongst these focused had been figures from what was as soon as the most important social gathering, Ennahda, such because the chief and former Speaker of Parliament Rached Ghannouchi, former Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, and former Minister of Justice Noureddine Bhiri.
Tunisia had been celebrated as maybe the one democratic success of the 2011 “Arab Spring” revolutions, with sturdy political engagement amongst its public and civil society members, who incessantly took to the airwaves and streets to make their voices heard.
The years that adopted the revolution, which overthrew long-time autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, noticed the expansion of a wholesome political system with quite a few elections declared free and truthful by worldwide observers.
However a weak economic system and the strengthening of anti-democratic forces led to a pushback, capped off by Saied’s dismissal of the federal government and dissolution of parliament.