️ Tunisian lawyer and columnist Sonia Dahmani has been sentenced to two years in prison for criticizing prison conditions, her lawyer said.

️ The Tunis Court of First Instance handed down the verdict after a hearing on Friday, lawyer Sami Ben Ghazi told AFP. It is the latest in a string of convictions against one of President Kais Saied's most prominent critics.

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

️ The 60-year-old Dahmani is facing prosecution in five separate cases, all linked to media statements and based on Decree 54, a "false information" law passed by Saied in 2022 that human rights groups have condemned as a tool of political repression.

️ The guilty verdict regarding her criticism of the prison system is not her first. She was sentenced to 18 months for a sarcastic remark on television in May 2024, questioning why migrants would want to settle in Tunisia amid a severe economic crisis.

️ In April, an appeal court handed her a further 18 months for criticizing cemeteries and buses reserved for Black people in parts of the country.

️ Dahmani was arrested in May 2024 at the headquarters of the Bar Association by masked police officers, in what her colleagues described as "a brutal and illegal operation."

️ She was released on conditional parole last November after more than 18 months in detention.

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

️ The crackdown has coincided with a hostile climate towards sub-Saharan migrants, following Saied's 2023 remarks accusing them of seeking to alter Tunisia's demographic makeup, which triggered a wave of violence.

Source: www.aljazeera.com