Tunisia sentences vocal critic of president to five years in jail

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By Tarek Amara

TUNIS (Reuters) -A Tunisian court sentenced a prominent critic of President Kais Saied to five years in prison on Friday, the latest in a series of actions targeting opposition figures who accuse Saied of using the judiciary to cement what they say is his authoritarian rule.

Ahmed Souab, a former administrative judge, was convicted by an anti-terrorism court in Tunis. He was detained in April over comments criticising the judiciary and describing the country’s judges as working “with a knife to their heads”.

Tunisian authorities said the remark was a threat, while Souab’s defence said it referred to the political pressure faced by the judiciary.

“Five years in prison, for what? For a figurative phrase, a spontaneous expression that everyone understood as symbolic, except the authorities. Ahmed Souab is imprisoned in our place,” said his lawyer Sami Ben Ghazi.

This week, three prominent NGOs announced that the authorities had suspended their activities over alleged foreign funding — a move they described as an attempt to silence the strong voice of civil society.

Since Saied seized wide-ranging powers in 2021, dissolving parliament and ruling by decree, opponents say he has destroyed the independence of the judiciary.

He dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and sacked dozens of judges in 2022 — moves that opposition groups and rights advocates condemned as a coup.

Most opposition leaders are in prison on various charges, including Rached Ghannouchi, head of the opposition Ennahda party, and Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party.

Saied denies using the judiciary against his political opponents and says he is cleansing the country of what he calls traitors and corrupt figures, adding that judges who acquit them are their accomplices. He says he will not be a dictator.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara;Editing by Alison Williams and Gareth Jones)