Sonia Dahmani was freed in November after spending more than 18 months in prison over comments she made denouncing racism in Tunisia [Getty]
Tunisian lawyer and media commentator Sonia Dahmani, who was released from detention last year, was sentenced on Monday to two years in prison over comments she made about the country’s jails, her lawyer said.
A Tunis court issued the verdict following a hearing on Friday, according to defence lawyer Sami Ben Ghazi, who said he had filed an appeal.
Dahmani was freed in November after spending more than 18 months in prison over comments she made denouncing racism in Tunisia.
A critic of President Kais Saied, she faces prosecution in five separate cases, all tied to her comments and media appearances.
Saied was elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged as the only democracy to come out of the Arab Spring.
In 2021, he staged a sweeping power grab, and human rights groups have since warned of a rollback of freedoms.
Dahmani’s charges stem from a 2022 law on “false information” introduced by Saied and widely condemned by human rights groups as a tool to stifle dissent.
Her lawyer said the latest case was brought after Tunisia’s prison administration filed a complaint over remarks Dahmani made during a 2023 radio interview criticising conditions in the country’s prisons.
In April, Dahmani was sentenced on appeal to 18 months in prison in a separate case linked to a radio broadcast in which she criticised the existence of cemeteries and buses reserved for black people in certain parts of the country.
Dahmani was sentenced in 2024 over comments regarding migration in Tunisia.
In a talk show, she had sarcastically questioned Tunisia’s state of affairs in response to claims that sub-Saharan migrants were settling in the country.
“What extraordinary country are we talking about?” she said at the time.
