About 40 Tunisian opposition figures have had their prison sentences upheld or adjusted on appeal in a case built around charges of conspiracy against state security and links to a terrorist group. Most were arrested in early 2023 and accused of things like meeting foreign diplomats. Their initial trial moved at remarkable speed, three hearings, no closing arguments, and produced sentences as high as 66 years. On appeal, terms now range from 10 to 45 years, with businessman Kamel Ltaief receiving the harshest at 45 years. Several prominent politicians, including Jawhar Ben Mbarek, Ghazi Chaouachi, Ridha Belhaj and Issam Chebbi, saw their sentences increased to 20 years, while others such as former minister Noureddine Bhiri had theirs reduced.

Rights groups say the process was deeply flawed. Amnesty International called the appeal court’s decision an indictment of Tunisia’s justice system, pointing to repeated due-process violations, remote hearings that excluded detained defendants from the courtroom, and pressure on defence lawyers. Ben Mbarek has been on hunger strike for a month, calling his detention arbitrary and unjust. Two defendants, media director Noureddine Boutar and lawyer Lazhar Akremi, were acquitted, while several others tried in absentia, including feminist activist Bochra Belhaj Hmida and French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, had long sentences upheld.

The political backdrop is hard to ignore. Since President Kais Saied’s 2021 power grab, local and international groups have warned that rights and freedoms in Tunisia are sliding backwards. The European Parliament has now called for the release of those detained for expressing their views, a move Saied dismissed as interference. In a separate case, columnist and lawyer Sonia Dahmani was granted conditional release after 18 months behind bars under a decree criminalizing vaguely defined “false information” — a law critics say is being used to silence dissent in a country once seen as the Arab Spring’s lone success story.