{"id":29049,"date":"2025-03-05T06:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T11:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29049"},"modified":"2025-03-05T06:37:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T11:37:14","slug":"mass-trial-begins-of-tunisian-presidents-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/03\/05\/mass-trial-begins-of-tunisian-presidents-opponents\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass trial begins of Tunisian president’s opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A mass trial of around 40 prominent opposition figures began in Tunisia on Tuesday, in a case that lawyers, relatives and rights groups say is politically motivated.<\/b><\/p>\n

Diplomats, politicians, lawyers, and journalists who are critical of President Ka\u00efs Sa\u00efed are among the defendants.<\/p>\n

They could face the death penalty if found guilty of charges which include “plotting against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch has labelled it a “mockery of a trial” based on “abusive charges”, while the UN recently urged Tunisian authorities to end “all forms of persecution of political opponents”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The country’s foreign ministry said it read\u00a0the UN’s statement<\/a>\u00a0with “astonishment” and criticised what it said were “inaccuracies”, and added that “Tunisia can give lessons to those who think they are in a position to make statements”.<\/p>\n

Campaigners say the trial highlights Sa\u00efed’s authoritarian control over the judiciary, after dissolving parliament in 2021 and ruling by decree.<\/p>\n

Since he was first elected six years ago, the former law professor has rewritten the constitution to enhance his powers.<\/p>\n

As the trial began on Tuesday, defence lawyers complained that they were not granted access to the full case file.<\/p>\n

“You can put an end to this madness and absurdity,” lawyer Abdelaziz Essid told judges in court.<\/p>\n

Among those on trial are ex-presidential chief of staff Nadia Akacha, the former leader of the Ennahda opposition party Abdelhamid Jelassi and Jaouhar Ben Mbarek, who was a high-profile critic of the president’s 2021 power grab.<\/p>\n

Some of the defendants, including Akacha, were tried in absentia having already fled the north African country.<\/p>\n

Among the defendants are people who were arrested two years ago and detained ever since, with Sa\u00efed labelling them “terrorists”.<\/p>\n

“It is one of the darkest injustices in Tunisia’s history,” said the head of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, Bassam Trifi.<\/p>\n

Outraged Tunisian activists have been demonstrating outside the court in the capital, Tunis.<\/p>\n

Among the banners they carried was the slogan: “No to remote trials, No to a judiciary that does not guarantee rights, freedom for political detainees”.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A mass trial of around 40 prominent opposition figures began in Tunisia on Tuesday, in a case that lawyers, relatives and rights groups say is politically motivated. Diplomats, politicians, lawyers, and journalists who are critical […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2,6],"tags":[138,1791,2322,11057],"class_list":{"0":"post-29049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-human-rights","11":"tag-human-rights-watch","12":"tag-tunisia","13":"tag-tunisian-league-for-the-defence-of-human-rights","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29051,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29049\/revisions\/29051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}