Tunisia sentences top human rights activist to 25 years in prison

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.