Tunisia jails exiled ex-President Marzouki for 22 Years

A Tunisian court has sentenced former president Moncef Marzouki, who lives in exile in France, to 22 years in prison in absentia on charges linked to “terrorism”, according to Tunisian media, as reported by The New Arab on June 21st.

The court delivered the same sentence to four others, including Marzouki’s former adviser Imed Daimi and ex-head of the national bar association Abderrazak Kilani. Marzouki, a vocal opponent of current president Kais Saied, had previously received two separate prison sentences totalling 12 years, one for allegedly “provoking disorder”.

This latest ruling followed a press conference in Paris where Marzouki, Daimi and Kilani sharply criticised Tunisian state institutions and members of the judiciary. Tunisia’s democracy continues to hang in the balance with strikes oppressed and opposition leaders imprisoned, hence the sentencing of a former President is poor optics.

Marzouki, who held office as Tunisia’s third president from 2011 to 2014, responded to the verdict by calling it “surreal”. He stated it formed part of a “series of verdicts that have targeted some of Tunisia’s finest men and continue to provoke the world’s mockery”.

Tunisia once stood as the Arab world’s sole democracy following the 2011 ousting of long-time autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, an event that ignited the Arab Spring. However, since President Saied consolidated power in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree, rights organisations have repeatedly warned of worsening repression and diminishing civil liberties.

In a sweeping trial earlier this year, a Tunisian court sentenced around 40 public figures, mostly government critics, to long prison terms for allegedly plotting against the state.

Authorities have also prosecuted and detained lawyers and media professionals under a 2022 law criminalising the “spreading of false news”, a measure widely seen as a tool to silence dissent.

The New Arab, Al-Jazeera, Amnesty International, Morocco World News