A court in Tunisia has sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh to 34 years in prison on a raft of terrorism charges.<\/p>\n
He is the latest high-profile critic of the president to be jailed as campaigners slam \u201csham trials\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
The 69-year-old is a prominent opponent of President Kais Saied and leader of the popular Ennadha party \u2013 the biggest in parliament \u2013 which promotes Islamist ideals.<\/p>\n
Along with seven other people, Laarayedh was charged with setting up a terrorist cell and helping young Tunisians travel abroad to join Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not a criminal\u2026 I am a victim in this case,\u201d he wrote in a letter to the court\u2019s prosecutor last month, according to the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced on Friday.<\/p>\n
Laarayedh has consistently denied any wrongdoing and said the case was politically motivated.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, at least 40 critics of Tunisia\u2019s president have been sent to prison \u2013 including diplomats, lawyers and journalists.<\/p>\n
Rights groups say these trials have highlighted Saied\u2019s authoritarian control over the judiciary, after dissolving parliament in 2021 and ruling by decree.<\/p>\n
Since he was first elected six years ago, the former law professor has rewritten the constitution to enhance his powers.<\/p>\n
Laarayedh was arrested three years ago and campaigners had called for his release -including Human Rights Watch, who said the affair seemed like \u201cone more example of President Saied\u2019s authorities trying to silence leaders of the Ennahda party and other opponents by tarring them as terrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ennahdha governed the North African nation for a short while after a popular uprising dubbed the Arab Spring.<\/p>\n
The protest movement originated in Tunisia \u2013 where a vegetable-seller called Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in despair of government corruption \u2013 and mass demonstrations soon spread across the wider region in 2011.<\/p>\n
However many Tunisians say the democratic gains made have since been lost, pointing to the current president\u2019s authoritarian grip on power.<\/p>\n
Yet President Saied has rejected criticism from inside and outside the country, saying he is fighting \u201ctraitors\u201d and suffering \u201cblatant foreign interference\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A court in Tunisia has sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh to 34 years in prison on a raft of terrorism charges. He is the latest high-profile critic of the president to be jailed as campaigners slam \u201csham trials\u201d in the country. The 69-year-old is a prominent opponent of President Kais Saied and leader of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}