Tunisia sentences opposition leader Abir Moussi to 12 years in jail

A Tunisian court has sentenced prominent opposition leader Abir Moussi to 12 years in prison amid a sweeping crackdown on critics of President Kais Saied, who has said he is cleansing the North African country of “traitors”.

Lawyer Nafaa Laribi, who represented Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party (Free Constitutional Party), in her third trial in the space of two years, called Friday’s ruling “unjust”, saying that it was “not a judicial decision but a politically motivated order”.

In a statement released before the verdict, the Free Destourian Party condemned “the injustice suffered by the party’s president, Abir Moussi, who has been arbitrarily detained since October 3, 2023”.

Moussi has been at the helm of the Free Destourian Party since 2016 and was a supporter of the late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was toppled by mass protests in 2011.

Her party has organised protests against President Saied, who came to power in 2019, shutting down the elected parliament in 2021 and moving to rule by decree.

He claimed that his measures were an attempt to save the country from anarchy.

The opposition leader was imprisoned in 2023 after police arrested her at the presidential palace entrance on suspicion of assault intended to cause chaos, amid a broader crackdown on journalists, activists, civil society groups and opposition leaders.

Moussi rejected the charges, saying she was simply exercising her right to criticise and legal opposition and promising to continue resisting what she called “abuse, torture, and political and moral violence”.

Friday’s sentence was in connection with that incident.

Previously, the politician had been sentenced to two years in prison under Decree 54, a law Saied enacted in 2022 to combat “false news”, though the punishment was later reduced on appeal.

After completing her first jail term last June, Moussi was sentenced again under the same law to two years in prison. The appeal process in that case is still under way.

Moussi’s detractors claim she wants to return to the authoritarianism of Ben Ali, who was toppled after citizens rose up against his rule in a revolution that inspired the Arab Spring and led to a democratic transition at home.

However, Saied’s current government also stands accused of escalating a crackdown, with dozens of opposition figures recently sentenced to harsh prison terms in a mass trial on charges of conspiracy against state security. Others are being prosecuted under Decree 54, which critics say is being deployed to criminalise free speech.

Rights groups and opponents say Saied has destroyed the independence of the judiciary since he shut down the elected parliament in 2021.

In 2022, he dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and sacked dozens of judges, moves that opposition groups and rights advocates condemned as a coup.

Saied denies using the judiciary against opponents.