Tunisian sentenced to death over Facebook posts, says lawyer

The 51-year-old defendant, identified as Saber Chouchane by human rights activists, was sentenced on charges including “spreading false news”, his defence lawyer Oussama Bouthelja told AFP.

The lawyer explained his client was found guilty of “insulting the president, the minister of justice, and the judiciary” and some of his posts were also deemed to be incitement.

The verdict was delivered Wednesday by a court in Nabeul, east of Tunis, the lawyer said, explaining an appeal would be launched against the decision.

The court’s spokesperson could not be reached for comment when contacted by AFP and the exact content of Chouchane’s posts remained unclear.

The defendant was detained in January 2024, the lawyer said.

The Paris-based, Tunisian human rights group CRLDHT said in a statement the verdict sets “a serious precedent” and that Tunisia has “reached unprecedented levels of human rights violations”, urging Chouchane’s “immediate release”.

Tunisian law says “an attack intended to change the state structure or incite residents to attack each other with weapons, causing chaos, murder and robbery on Tunisian soil” is punishable by death.

Tunisian courts continue to issue death sentences, though the country has not carried out executions since 1991.

Saied was elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged as the only democracy following the Arab Spring.

But in 2021, he staged a sweeping power grab, and human rights groups have since warned of a rollback on freedoms.

Decree 54, the law criminalising “spreading false news”, was enacted by Saied in September 2022.

It has been criticised by rights groups for stifling free speech in the North African country.

Dozens of Saied’s critics have been prosecuted under Decree 54 and are currently behind bars.

Many have also accused Tunisia’s judiciary of acting on “political instructions”, although Saied has repeatedly said that courts were independent and individual freedoms remained protected.