Sonia Dhamani, an attorney who criticizes the president, is sentenced to two years in prison by a Tunisian court

Lawyers say that Sonia Dhamani, a well-known lawyer who spoke out against President Kais Saied, was given a two-year prison term by a court in Tunisia on Monday. Human rights groups say this is a sign of a growing crackdown on dissent in the North African country.

The lawyers for Dhamani quit the trial because the judge wouldn’t end it, saying that Dhamani was being tried twice for the same crime.

The court punished Dhamani for saying bad things about how people from sub-Saharan Africa are treated when they come to the United States.

Bassem Trifi, Dhamni’s lawyer, said that the jail time was “a grave injustice” because it was two years.

“What’s going on is a joke. “Sonia is being tried twice for the same statement,” Dhamani’s other lawyer, Sami Ben Ghazi, told Reuters.

Dhamani was arrested last year after saying things on TV that made people question the government’s position on African immigrants in Tunisia who don’t have papers.

The case was brought under Decree 54, Tunisia’s controversial hacking law, which has been criticized by many rights groups around the world and in Tunisia.

Since Saied took over most of the country’s power, got rid of the elected parliament, and started ruling by order in 2021, most opposition leaders, some journalists, and people who don’t like Saied have been jailed. The opposition has called these actions a coup.

Saied says the charges against him are false and that he is only following the law to end years of chaos and widespread corruption.

Human rights groups and campaigners say that Saied has turned Tunisia into a prison outside and is going after his political opponents with the police and the courts.

Saied denies these claims, saying that he will not be a tyrant and that he wants to hold everyone equally responsible, no matter what their job is or what their name is.