According to state media, Tunisian opposition figures have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
40 people were sentenced on Saturday, including a former justice minister and diplomats, along with the country’s most senior opposition politicians. Critics claim that the accusations are false and that they represent the authoritarian rule of President Kais Saied.
According to an unnamed judicial official, the sentences ranged from 13 to 66 years in length, according to the TAP state news agency.
According to Jawhara FM, an anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office official claimed that the defendants had engaged in “foreign powers” to undermine Saied’s rule and had been found guilty of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group.”
The trial’s specific details are still ambiguous, with the trial’s exact number and the disputed charges that stand in their way.
On Saturday, it was unclear whether all of the estimated 40 defendants in the case, which has been ongoing for about two years, had been found guilty and sentenced to prison.
The French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, who is accused of acting as a liaison between defendants and foreign parties, was among the 20 defendants who have fled Tunisia and were sentenced in absentia.
President Saied has used violence against political opponents and dissidents by using arbitrary detention and arbitrary prosecutions against them, according to Bassam Khawaja, deputy director of Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa, to attack Al Jazeera earlier this month.
After the judge finished reading the accusations and deliberating without the defense or the prosecution, the defense lawyers decried the trial on Friday evening.
“I have never been in a situation like this in my entire life.” Lawyer Ahmed Souab claimed that the rulings are final, and what is happening is scandalous and shameful. “It’s a farce.
Authorities have charged the defendants with trying to destabilize the nation and overthrow Saeed, including former head of intelligence Kamel Guizani and media figures.
Since being detained in 2023, several of the defendants have been in custody, including Jawhar Ben Mubarak, Ghazi Chaouachi, and Issam Chebbi. The National Salvation Front coalition, which includes Chebbi, is in operation.
On Friday, Chebbi stated that “the authorities want to criminalize the opposition.”
Said refutes claims that he is a dictator. He claimed that any judge who would convict the accused politicians would be an accomplice in 2023 and that they were “traitors and terrorists.”
Saied consolidated his position in 2021 by sacking the then-prime minister and resolving the parliament.
He was accused of staging a “coup” by the opposition leaders involved in the case.
They claim that the charges brought against them were made to stifle the opposition and establish a one-man, repressive regime.
Some of Tunisia’s most renowned opposition figures are already imprisoned.
Ennahdha’s head, Rached Ghannouchi, was detained in April 2023 and given a year in prison for incitement-related charges.
Source: Aljazeera
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