Tunisian opposition leader gets suspended jail term
Tunisian opposition activist Chaima Issa has been given a one-year suspended prison sentence for insulting the president, Reuters reports.
Chaima Issa was found guilty by a military court of insulting President Kais Saied and encouraging soldiers to disobey orders. Issa denies being guilty.
Tunisia’s opposition views Issa’s sentence as an effort to silence Saied’s critics.
Read: Tunisia: police arrest two leaders of opposition party
In July 2021, the president, who was elected democratically in October 2019, launched a power grab, ousting the previous prime minister and parliament and granting himself extensive emergency powers. What’s more, since then, he has repressed his political opponents and enacted a new constitution to weaken parliament.
In February, Issa was one of twenty political leaders detained on suspicion of “plotting against state security.” She was freed in July, according to Al-Jazeera.
Rights groups have called on the authorities to release the other political prisoners, including Rached Ghannouchi, the former speaker of the parliament and leader of the Ennahdha party.
Saied has rejected these requests, claiming that the detainees are “terrorists” and “traitors” and that judges who release them would help them commit crimes.
Following a court hearing on 11th December, Chaima Issa, a coalition member of the National Salvation Front, stated that Saied’s opponents were being treated like “criminals.”
She stated, “We are not criminals.” We don’t make plans. We are not deceivers. We are politicians who oppose the July 25, 2021 coup.
By the same token, rights activists condemned Issa’s conviction and the fact that she was subsequently tried in a military court, stating, “Opinion trials must end.”
Issa’s attorney, Samir Dilou, a senior National Salvation Front official, stated: “Opponents should not be tried by the military court. Trials of opinions must end. A country in which there was a revolution against injustice would not have the right to put opponents on trial for their ideas and opinions.”
Reuters/Al-Jazeera
