Tunisia Hands Heavy Sentences to Prominent Opposition Figures

In the latest sign of deepening repression in what was once virtually the sole Arab democracy, a court in Tunisia has handed down heavy sentences to prominent opposition figures convicted on charges of conspiring against state security, the country’s official news agency said on Saturday.

Rights groups and lawyers have called the charges baseless.

Forty people had been charged in the case, including opposition leaders, lawyers, businessmen, rights activists and journalists. The court handed down prison sentences of 13 to 66 years, the news agency, TAP, said, citing a judicial official. The agency gave no other details.

“All these heavy sentences are aiming to intimidate politicians, public opinion and activists in order to put an end to political life in Tunisia,” said Fawzi Jaballah, one of the defendants’ lawyers. “From the beginning, this case was never proven with concrete evidence.”

Tunisia, in North Africa, was the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against authoritarian rule that began in late 2010 and surged across much of the Arab world. But the country has been steadily sliding back into authoritarianism and repression since President Kais Saied moved to institute one-man rule in 2021.

In the decade after the uprising, Tunisia managed to establish democratic elections, a liberated news media and freedom of expression, allowing protests and citizen complaints to flourish. But the economy stagnated, state finances deteriorated, inequalities remained or deepened, and Tunisians grew increasingly divided over the power that political Islamists had accrued in the post-revolution years.

That led many Tunisians to embrace Mr. Saied and his promises of change.

Nearly four years after his power grab, however, Mr. Saied has squandered his popularity on decisions that experts say have only worsened the economic crisis and brought ever-harsher repression.