Tunisian who posted critical remarks about the president on Facebook was given a death sentence
The President of the Tunisian League for Human Rights and his attorney said Friday that a Tunisian man had been sentenced to death on accusations of insulting the president and threatening national security through social media posts.
In Tunisia, where President Kais Saied has strengthened limits on free expression since seizing nearly all of the country’s authorities in 2021, the ruling is unique.
According to his attorney, Oussama Bouthalja, the 56-year-old day laborer Saber Chouchane, who was convicted, is a normal citizen with little education who was merely posting critical posts about the president prior to his arrest last year, Reuters reported.
“The individual was given a death sentence by the judge in the Nabeul court because of his Facebook posts. The decision is startling and unheard of,” Bouthalja declared.
He said that the decision has been appealed. A statement from the justice ministry was not immediately available.
Although death penalties have been imposed by Tunisian courts on occasion, none have been executed for over thirty years.
“We can’t believe it,” Saber’s brother Jamal Chouchane told Reuters over the phone. “We are a family suffering from poverty, and now oppression and injustice have been added to poverty.”
On social media, the sentence instantly provoked a barrage of mockery and abuse from both activists and regular Tunisians.
Many warned that such severe restrictions could further limit free expression and heighten political tensions, and some saw the verdict as a conscious attempt to instill terror among Saied’s detractors.
Rights organizations have increasingly criticized Tunisia for the degradation of judicial independence since Saied disbanded the elected parliament and began governing by decree. Saied’s power grab was referred to be a coup by the opposition.
The majority of opposition leaders are imprisoned on a variety of charges after being labeled traitors by the president.
