Tunisia: Man sentenced to death for anti-government Facebook posts

Tunisia’s increasingly autocratic government has shattered the moral floorboards, as a 56-year-old man is sentenced to death for criticising the country’s President on Facebook, according to Africanews, October 3.

In an unprecedented move in the country, Saber Chouchane, a labourer and father of three, has been handed a death sentence by a Tunisian court for his regular criticisms of the country’s President, Kaïs Saied, on his Facebook page called “Kaïs le misérable” (“Kaïs the miserable”).

The page is also reported to have posted caricatures of the leader and made calls to his followers to protest the government.

Chouchane has immediately launched an appeal against the decision, while his family are said to be in complete shock at the court ruling.

“We are a family suffering from poverty, and now oppression and injustice have been added to poverty,” Saber’s brother Jamal is reported to have said, adding that “we can’t believe it.”

Tunisia has seen a rapid decline in its freedom of speech in recent years, as Saied and his government continue to impose greater restrictions on the people, which have worked in tandem to hamper the North African country’s democracy.

The current President, who was sworn in to his second term in 2024, has been rapidly securing more powers in his office, allowing Saied a greater degree of control over the country.

Saied has been ruling by decree ever since he dissolved Tunisia’s elected Parliament in 2022. Since then, the country has received intense backlash from rights groups, saying that the power grab weakens judicial independence. The country’s opposition described Saied’s dissolution of Parliament as a coup.

As Saied deepens his grip on power, regular Tunisians have reacted to the sentencing with horror, disgust and disbelief.

Saber Chouchane’s lawyer, Oussama Bouthalja, has said he is “incredulous” at the court ruling, with the public outcry in Tunisia reflecting a similar state of shock and mockery at the decision.

Bouthalja has described his client as a simple man, possessing only a limited education, which adds to the bizarreness of how Saber Chouchane posed a threat.

Tunisia has been known to make use of the death penalty in the past, but the case of Mr Chouchane has revived the brutal punishment after a 30-year hiatus.

The court ruling marks the first time in the country’s history any critic has been given such a harsh and drastic sentence.

With growing oppression, the country has seen a crackdown on lawyers, opposition figures, politicians and more since Saied came to power. With blatant election interference, and little chance of removing Saied from office anytime soon, the future of everyday Tunisians’ right’s look bleak.

Africanews, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Maghrebi.org