Amnesty International (AI) has condemned a Tunisian court’s decision to sentence opposition figure Rached Ghannouchi to prison under Tunisia’s anti-terrorism law.
Development Diaries reports that Tunisia’s anti-terrorism court recently gave Ghannouchi, the leader of the opposition Ennahda party, a one-year prison sentence and a fine in connection with public remarks made at a funeral in 2022.
AI, in a statement, said the sentencing highlights an intensifying campaign against the country’s largest party, which comes as part of a crackdown on dissidents and perceived critics of President Kais Saied.
‘Tunisian authorities are increasingly using repressive, vaguely-worded laws as a pretext for repression and to arrest, investigate and in some cases prosecute dissidents and opposition figures’, the organisation’s acting Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Rawya Rageh, said.
‘The sentencing of Rashed Ghannouchi shows a growing crackdown on human rights and opposition and a deeply worrying pattern.
‘To sentence the leader of the country’s largest party based on public remarks he made a year ago – merely exercising his right to freedom of expression – is another indication of the political motivations behind these ongoing prosecutions’.
It is understood that Ghannouchi, on 22 February, made remarks at a funeral in which he praised the deceased as a ‘courageous man’ who did not fear ‘a ruler or tyrant’.
Lawyer Zeineb Brahmi, a member of Ghannouchi’s legal defence team and the head of Ennahda’s legal office, said in a 15 May ruling that Tunisia’s anti-terrorism court sentenced Ghannouchi based on those remarks.
Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article Nine of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, both of which Tunisia has ratified, guarantee the right to freedom of expression.
Freedom House ranked Tunisia as ‘partly free’ in its 2023 Freedom in the World report on political rights and civil liberties, with the Maghreb nation earning 64 points out of a possible 100.
Development Diaries calls on the Tunisian authorities to respect these international laws, which it ratified, and allow Ghannouchi the right to a fair trial.
Photo source: Brookings Institution
