Tunis – A Tunisian military court sentenced a journalist to four months in prison on Friday for “insulting” President Kais Saied, the journalist’s lawyer said.
Amer Ayad, a presenter on the private channel Zitouna TV, is still at liberty pending an appeal, lawyer Samir Ben Amor said.
Ayad was charged in October last year after delivering a heated monologue against Saied, who three months earlier had sacked the government and suspended parliament in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
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Ayad had also criticised Saied’s nomination of Prime Minister Najla Bouden, saying she would be “nothing more than a servant of the sultan and an executor of his orders”.
He suggested that Saied had named Bouden, the Arab world’s first female prime minister, after failing to find a man for the job.
Ayad was arrested days later and detained for two months.
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Abdellatif Al-Aloui, a member of the conservative Islamist movement Al-Karama who also appeared on Ayad’s show, was sentenced to three months in prison in the same case and will appeal, Ben Amor said.
Western governments and human rights groups have criticised Tunisia’s use of military courts to try civilians, especially since Saied’s July 25 power grab.
Since that date the president has moved to rule by decree and taken control of the judiciary in moves his opponents say threaten to bring back autocracy to the North African country.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Getty Images
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