A Tunisian court has sentenced a 56-year-old day labourer to death for Facebook posts deemed insulting to President Kais Saied and “assaulting state security,” his lawyer and the head of the Tunisian League for Human Rights said on Friday.
The defendant, Saber Chouchane, has limited formal education and was arrested last year after repeatedly criticising the president online, his lawyer Oussama Bouthalja told Reuters. “The judge in Nabeul sentenced him to death over Facebook posts. It is a shocking and unprecedented ruling,” he said, adding that an appeal has been filed. The justice ministry did not immediately comment.
Tunisia maintains a de facto moratorium on executions and has not carried out a death sentence in more than three decades. “We can’t believe it,” Chouchane’s brother, Jamal, said by phone. “We are a poor family, and now oppression and injustice have been added to poverty.”
News of the verdict drew swift condemnation and mockery on social media, with activists and ordinary Tunisians warning the case would chill dissent and deepen political tensions.
Rights groups say freedoms have eroded since Saied seized extraordinary powers in 2021, dissolving parliament and ruling by decree. The opposition, which calls his actions a coup, says many of its leaders—whom Saied has branded traitors—are in jail on various charges.