{"id":29245,"date":"2025-04-19T10:56:52","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29245"},"modified":"2025-04-19T10:57:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:57:58","slug":"tunisian-opposition-leaders-jailed-on-terror-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/04\/19\/tunisian-opposition-leaders-jailed-on-terror-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisian opposition leaders jailed on terror charges"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A court in Tunisia has sentenced a group of senior politicians, businessmen and lawyers to long prison sentences on conspiracy and terrorism charges.<\/b><\/p>\n

The defendants received sentences of up to 66 years. They include leaders of National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, who were arrested in 2023.<\/p>\n

Human rights groups described the trial as an attempt to stifle dissent. A defence lawyer said it was a “farce”.<\/p>\n

President Kais Saied suspended parliament after being elected in 2019. Last year he\u00a0won a second term by a landslide<\/a>, after jailing dissidents and potential rivals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the latest case, a total of 40 defendants were accused of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”. Most had left the country and were tried in absentia.<\/p>\n

Those in detention include National Salvation Front leaders Issam Chebbi and Jawhar Ben Mbarek.<\/p>\n

They were given 18-year sentences, a defence lawyer told AFP news agency following the ruling late on Friday.<\/p>\n

Kamel Eltaief, an activist and businessman, was jailed for 66 years, the lawyer added.<\/p>\n

Kamel Jendoubi, a former minister who was tried in absentia, told AFP news agency: “This is not a judiciary ruling, but a political decree executed by judges under orders.”<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Ahmed Souab is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying: “I have never witnessed a trial like this. It’s a farce.”<\/p>\n

Tunisia is the country where a wave of pro-democracy protests in the Arab world began in late 2010. The country’s long-time strongman, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was ousted within weeks.<\/p>\n

Last year’s election was Tunisia’s third presidential vote since then.<\/p>\n

Rights group Amnesty International has denounced “a worrying decline in fundamental rights” under Saied’s government as discontent rises over his authoritarian style of governance.<\/p>\n

Saied has rejected the criticism, saying he is fighting a “corrupt elite” and “traitors”.<\/p>\n

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

A court in Tunisia has sentenced a group of senior politicians, businessmen and lawyers to long prison sentences on conspiracy and terrorism charges. The defendants received sentences of up to 66 years. They include leaders […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[11206,2322],"class_list":{"0":"post-29245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world","9":"tag-national-salvation-front","10":"tag-tunisia","11":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29245","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=29245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29248,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29245\/revisions\/29248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}