Tunisian judge jails 82-year-old opposition leader for 3 more years
A Tunisian judge sentenced an 82-year-old opposition party leader to three additional years in prison, according to Reuters.
Ferocious critic of Tunisian president and head of the Ennahda party, a Tunisian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Rached Ghannouchi, was imprisoned for accepting external financing on 31st January.
Ghannouchi has been incarcerated since April 2023 when he was sentenced to a year’s confinement for inciting against police.
Ghannouchi’s lawyer, Monia Bouali told Reuters that the Tunisian court also sentenced Ghannouchi’s son-in-law for three years and that the Ennahda party were being fined $1.1 million dollars by Tunisian authorities.
Although human rights and opposition groups have accused President Saied of authoritarian rule through his control of the press and the courts, imprisonment of objectors, and his dismissal of government in July 2021, Saied remains that his actions were not of a coup.
Saied has expressed his desire to cleanse Tunisia of the corruption that has erupted over the last decade and claims that any actions taken were needed to protect Tunisia from years of chaos.
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In 2023, Tunisian authorities ordered police to close the primary opposition coalitions headquarters, the Salvation Front, and banned all Ennahda meetings.
The Ennahda party claim that they have never received any foreign funding and reject the “unjust sentence” their leader faces. The party says that it will continue to defend itself against the injustice inflicted by Tunisia’s government.
Before the 2011 revolution that introduced democracy to the country, Ghannouchi was in exile. In Tunisia’s 2019 election, Ghannouchi went from fugitive to parliament speaker for three years until Saied closed the chamber in 2021.
Saied warned that any judge who released the criminals, traitors, and terrorists that challenged him would be endorsing their opposition.
Reuters
