A Tunisian court has handed jail terms to dozens of opposition leaders, lawyers and businessmen accused of attempting to overthrow the nation’s president.
Forty people including opposition leader Jawahar Ben Mbarek were handed sentences ranging from four to 45 years over the alleged conspiracy to oust President Kais Saied.
Twenty of those charged have fled abroad and were sentenced in absentia, while others have been held in detention since 2023.
Human rights groups have criticised the trial as politically motivated, characterising the prosecutions as an escalation of Saied’s crackdown on dissent since he suspended Tunisia’s parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.
Tunisian authorities argue the defendants, who include former head of intelligence Kamel Guizani, attemtpted to destabilise the country and topple Saied.
Ben Mbarek and party leaders Issam Chebbi and Ghazi Chaouachi received jail terms of 20 years. All three have been detained since the 2023 crackdown.
The maximum sentence, 45 years, was given to businessman Kamel Ltaif, while opposition politician Khyam Turki received a 35-year term.
Ben Mbarek has been on hunger strike for over a month and was at risk of dying, news agency AFP reports, citing his sister and lawyer Dalila Ben Mbarek.
Among those sentenced in absentia was politician and feminist Bochra Belhaj Hmida, as well as French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, human rights groups say.
The final sentences were issued by an appeals court after the opposition figures were initially sentenced in April. Saied had branded them “terrorists”.
A lawyer for the defendants was quoted by Reuters as describing the trial as a “farce” that had the “clear intent to eliminate political opponents”.
Human rights groups have also been critical of the prosecutions.
Sara Hashash, deputy regional director at Amnesty International, described the sentences as “unjust” and “an appalling indictment of the Tunisian justice system”.
She said that while three defendants were acquitted by the appeals court, it had increased others’ sentences.
“The Court of Appeal has thereby also rubber stamped the government’s use of the justice system to eliminate political dissent.”
After the initial ruling in April, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the trial had raised “serious concerns about political motivations”, and urged the Tunisian government to “refrain from using broad national security and counter terrorism legislation to silence dissent”.
On Saturday, thousands of Tunisians marched through the capital, Tunis, in an anti-government protest, accusing Saied of cementing a one-man rule through the judiciary and police.
Saied was elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged from the Arab Spring democracy movement.
But the north African nation has since seen democratic backsliding and the re-imposition of aspects of authoritarian rule.