A Tunisian court has sentenced the opposition president Sonia Dahmani to prison again Freedom of Journalists News

A lawyer has been convicted for the second time this year as President Saied’s crackdown on opponents escalates.

Tunisian lawyer and journalist Sonia Dahmani has been sentenced to two years in prison for protesting prison conditions, according to her lawyer.

The first court of Tunis handed down the sentence later on Friday, lawyer Sami Ben Ghazi told the AFP news agency. This is the latest in a series of attacks against one of President Kais Saied’s most prominent opponents.

The case followed a complaint by the General Administration of Prisons during a 2023 radio interview in which Dahmani criticized prison conditions. Dahmani’s lawyer said he has filed an appeal.

The 60-year-old Dahmani is charged in five separate cases, all linked to media reports and based on Decree 54, a “fake” law passed by Saied in 2022 that human rights groups have criticized as a tool of political repression.

The guilty verdict regarding his opposition to prison was not the first. He was sentenced to 18 months for making a mocking speech on television in May 2024, questioning why migrants would want to settle in Tunisia amid its economic crisis.

In April, an appeals court gave him another 18 months for criticizing cemeteries and buses for black people in other parts of the country.

Dahmani was to be arrested in May 2024 at the headquarters of the Bar Association by masked police, in what their colleagues described as a “brutal and illegal operation.”

He was release on parole last November after serving more than 18 months in prison.

Human rights groups have raised alarm at what they describe as a sharp increase in repression since Saied seized power in a coup in July 2021. Lawyers, journalists and activists are increasingly being arrested under Decree 54 or on anti-terrorism charges.

The crackdown coincided with a bad climate for migrants south of the Sahara, following Saied’s 2023 speech accusing them of trying to change Tunisian culture, which led to violence.