Tunisia, Tunisia — A potential presidential candidate in Tunisia has been sentenced to two years in prison, dealing another setback for the country’s nascent opposition challenging President Kais Saied in his quest for a new term.
Abir MoussiA 49-year-old lawyer and leader of the right-wing Free Destourian Party, he was arrested in October after criticizing the electoral process and the presidential decrees that guided it, alleging a lack of transparency.
Following a complaint filed by the North African nation’s electoral authority, she was found guilty of violating a controversial decree against fake news that prohibits the dissemination of information that slanders or harms others. The law has been widely used to prosecute those who criticize authorities.
Moussi’s lawyer, Nafaa Laribi, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she still intends to run in the Oct. 6 presidential election. choiceand so, unlike other candidatesnothing in Monday’s ruling prevents him from running.
Laribi said Moussi’s morale remained high and he planned to appeal.
The sentence is the latest in a growing repression that Observers have said is politically motivated against Saied’s critics, regardless of their political affiliation.
With Moussi and other leading opposition figures in prison, saying is expected face little electoral competition in what was once the most progressive democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.
Moussi appeals to sectors of the population who are nostalgic for Tunisia’s pre-revolutionary era. A strong critic of Islamists like the imprisoned leader of Ennahda Rached Ghannouchi, Moussi was an official in the ruling party of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Over the years, he became one of the most popular and controversial political figures in the country.
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