A Tunisian has been sentenced to death on charges of insulting the president and undermining state security through social media posts, his lawyer and head of the Tunisian League for Human Rights Oussama Boutalja said today, quoted by Reuters, BTA reported.
The court ruling is unprecedented for Tunisia, where restrictions on freedom of speech have been tightened since President Kais Saied concentrated almost all power in the country in 2021.
The convicted 56-year-old worker, Saber Chouchane, is a poorly educated ordinary citizen who simply wrote critical posts about the president on social media before being arrested last year, his lawyer told Reuters.
“The judge in the Nabeul court sentenced the man to death for posts on Facebook. It is a shocking and unprecedented decision,” Boutalja said.
The lawyer added that he had appealed the verdict. The Tunisian Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Although Tunisian courts occasionally issue death sentences, none have been carried out in more than three decades.
“We cannot believe it,” Saber Chouchaneh’s brother, Jamal, told Reuters by telephone, adding: “We are a family living in poverty, and now we have been subjected to such injustice.”
The verdict immediately sparked a wave of criticism and ridicule on social media among activists and ordinary Tunisians. Many in the country describe Chouchane's sentence as a deliberate attempt to intimidate critics of Saied and warn that such harsh measures stifle free speech and deepen political tensions, Reuters points out.
Since Saied dissolved the democratically elected parliament and began ruling by decree, Tunisian authorities have come under increased criticism from human rights groups for undermining the independence of the judiciary. The opposition has described Saied's actions, which secured expanded powers in 2021, as a coup d'état. Most of the country's opposition leaders, whom the president calls traitors, have been imprisoned on various charges, Reuters recalls.