A Tunisian court has sentenced dozens of opposition leaders, lawyers and businessmen to prison after being accused of attempting to overthrow the country’s president.
Forty people, including opposition leader Jawaharlal Nehru, were sentenced to four to 45 years in prison for an alleged plot to oust President Kais Saied.
Twenty of those charged have fled abroad and have been sentenced in absentia, while others have been detained through 2023.
Human rights groups have criticized the trial as politically motivated and described the prosecution as an escalation of a crackdown on dissent since Saied suspended Tunisia’s parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.
Tunisian authorities argue that the defendants, who also include former intelligence chief Kamel Guizani, attempted to destabilize the country and oust Saied.
Ben Mbarek and party leaders Issam Chebbi and Ghazi Chouachi received 20-year prison sentences. All three have been detained since the 2023 action.
The maximum sentence, 45 years, was given to businessman Kamel Lataif, while opposition politician Khyam Turki received 35 years.
Ben Mbarek has been on hunger strike for more than a month and was in danger of dying, AFP news agency reported, citing his sister and lawyer Delila Ben Mbarek.
Human rights groups say those sentenced in absentia included politician and feminist Bouchra Belhaj Hamida, as well as French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
The final sentences were issued by an appeals court after the opposition figures were initially sentenced in April. Saeed had termed him a “terrorist”.
Reuters quoted a lawyer for the defendants as describing the trial as a “farce” with the “clear intention of eliminating political opponents”.
Human rights groups have also been critical of the prosecutions.
Sarah Hashash, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director, described the sentences as “unjust” and a “appalling indictment of the Tunisian justice system”.
He said that while the appeal court acquitted three defendants, it increased the sentences of others.
“The Court of Appeals also rubber-stamps the government’s use of the justice system to quash political dissent.”
Following the initial verdict in April, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the trial raised “serious concerns about political motivations”, and urged the Tunisian government to “refrain from using sweeping national security and anti-terrorism legislation to suppress dissent”.
Thousands of Tunisians marched in the capital Tunis on Saturday in an anti-government protest, accusing Saied of cementing one-man rule through the judiciary and police.
Saied was elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged from the Arab Spring democracy movement.
But the North African nation has since seen democratic decline and aspects of authoritarian rule reimposed.
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