Tunisian human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine, one of the country's most prominent opposition figures, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison in cases related to transitional justice, she announced Friday to AFP.
Sihem Bensedrine © TFP
Tunisian human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine, one of the country's most prominent opposition figures, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison in cases related to transitional justice, she announced Friday to AFP.
Bensedrine, a former journalist who served as president of the Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), which heard testimony from thousands of victims of the Bourguiba (1957-1987) and Ben Ali (1987-2011) eras, was prosecuted on suspicion of falsifying part of the commission's final report.
She dismissed the verdict as politically motivated. "This decision has nothing to do with justice. It has to do with a totalitarian regime that wants to eliminate the legacy of the IVD," she declared.
The sentence against one of Tunisia's most respected human rights defenders is the latest in a series of moves by President Kais Saied's government against civil society, opposition figures, journalists and activists since his 2021 power grab. Critics say the prosecution of Bensedrine is a deliberate attempt to discredit the transitional justice process and bury the historical record of abuses committed under the country's previous authoritarian rulers.
For a country that was once held up as the Arab Spring's sole democratic success story, the jailing of a woman who devoted her career to documenting state crimes and seeking justice for victims represents a deeply troubling milestone.
By Badr Zayan
Activists and opponents of Tunisian President Kais Saied took to the streets of Tunis on Thursday, calling for his departure and the restoration of democracy in the latest protest against his governance amid growing political and economic discontent.
Hundreds of migrants who recently entered Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta staged a protest on a popular urban beach on Sunday, urging Spanish authorities to grant them asylum instead of sending them back to Morocco.
Authorities in eastern Libya under military commander Khalifa Haftar helped secure the release of an American missionary held hostage held by an Islamic State affiliate in West Africa's Sahel region, escorting him to freedom through Libya, five sources told Reuters on Friday.
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