Ramla Dahmani is the sister of Tunisian political commentator, journalist, and lawyer Sonia Dahmani, who is currently imprisoned in her country for allegedly spreading false information. Ramla herself, speaking out from a secret location in Europe to defend her sister and draw international attention to her case, has also been sentenced to prison. The ruling, issued in absentia on July 1, came to light only by chance, when her lawyers—having received no formal notification—stumbled upon it in judicial records. Otherwise, Ramla would have faced an unexpected arrest and imprisonment upon any return trip to Tunisia.
“We are all terrified—much more than during Ben Ali’s rule,” says a Tunisian political analyst now living with his family in an EU country. Requesting complete anonymity, he explains: “I could discover that I’ve been convicted in absentia without even knowing it, and then be arrested at the airport.” According to him, none of his acquaintances feels safe anymore. Since the so-called “soft coup” of President Kais Saied—on July 25, 2021, when he suspended Parliament and the prime minister by invoking Article 80 of the old Constitution to “stabilize” the economy and political life—Tunisia’s independent voices have repeatedly warned of the country’s authoritarian drift, in what was once hailed as the cradle of the Arab Spring.
In recent weeks, however, the tone has shifted. The list of intellectuals, teachers, journalists, institutional figures, and even ordinary civil servants who have been arrested, subjected to restrictive measures, or dismissed from their posts keeps growing longer. At the same time, the community of exiles abroad is expanding, bringing together men and women from across the social and political spectrum. What they share is a crucial point: they have criticized the regime—whether harshly or mildly, makes little difference. Now they find themselves in the crosshairs of President Saied’s inner circle. Tried without proper legal safeguards, many face sentences of up to 30 years in prison.
Bochra Bel Hadj Hamid—lawyer, member of Parliament, and president of the Association of Democratic Women—was awarded in 2018 by President Béji Caid Essebsi with the honor of Commander of the Order of the Tunisian Republic for her contribution to the Citizens’ Freedoms Report. Today, she has been living in hiding in France for nearly two years after being sentenced on terrorism charges. The penalty: 35 years in prison. Her case is part of a wider judicial saga that leading international human rights organizations describe as the “Conspiracy 1” and “Conspiracy 2” trials: hundreds of Tunisian citizens investigated for offenses ranging from undermining state security and terrorism to defaming the presidency and “damaging the nation’s honor.” Despite this, Hamid, a liberal by political background, has not stopped making her voice heard, publishing letters and articles on news sites that continue to resist government pressure.
Tunisia After the Coup of July 25, 2021 is the title of a report by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), which examines the post-coup landscape in the North African republic. It highlights what it calls an “unprecedented” concentration of power in the hands of the raïs, made possible by the new Constitution that came into force a year after the putsch. The text grants the president legislative power of “proposal” (both chambers work on bills drafted by the presidency), executive power (the government, according to the Constitution, merely “assists” the president), and judicial power (judges are “suggested” to their council by the political leadership, while the Constitutional Court has become little more than a ghost).
It may sound like a familiar script from other authoritarian contexts. Yet one feature that stands out is the particular harshness directed against women.
Abir Moussi—a lawyer, president of the Free Destourian Party, and a nostalgic defender of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s ancien régime—has been imprisoned since October 2023 for criticizing the country’s totalitarian turn. Her initial sentence has been repeatedly extended through the addition of new charges.
Since December 2024, Salwa Ghrissa—retired academic and director of the Association for the Promotion of the Right to Difference, an NGO known for defending migrants’ rights, particularly those of sub-Saharan Africans—has also been in prison. But this is hardly a favorable time for such work: the Tunisian presidency’s nationalist campaign rests on the theory of an international plot to replace the Arab-Tunisian population with an Afro-Black one. In April of this year, Interior Minister Khaled Ennouri declared that the government was ready to confront “any project aimed at altering the demographic composition of the Tunisian population.” Also jailed for their anti-racist activism are Sherifa Riahi and Saadia Mosbah.
Saadia Mosbah, president of the association Mnemty (literally, “My Dream”), spoke out against the president’s rhetoric about “hordes of illegal migrants ready to invade Tunisia” and denounced police actions targeting citizens of sub-Saharan origin, who face daily discrimination.
Repression against humanitarian workers, openly critical politicians, lawyers, and judges relies on the 2015 anti-terrorism law No. 26, later amended and made harsher.
Most arrests of journalists and bloggers in the past three years, meanwhile, have been carried out under Decree No. 54, focused on combating so-called false information and communications, and carrying penalties of up to ten years in prison.
Around ten articles of the Tunisian Penal Code have been amended and are now routinely applied to “opinion crimes.”
Meanwhile, 84-year-old Rached Ghannouchi, speaker of Parliament and leader of the Ennahda party, remains in prison. He and other senior figures of the Islamist movement face charges of conspiring against state stability and money laundering; he’s set to serve an unprecedented sentence of more than forty years in prison. Ghannouchi also suffers from Parkinson’s disease.
In France lives Moncef Marzouki, president of the Republic from 2011 to 2014, who has been accused in absentia of endangering state security from abroad. He now faces more than 30 years in cumulative prison sentences. At 80, Marzouki is one of Kais Saied’s fiercest opponents.
Former prime ministers have also been convicted on charges ranging from money laundering to treason and threatening state security. Among them are Youssef Chahed (a liberal modernist from the now-defunct Nidaa Tounès party), Hamadi Jebali (former secretary general of Ennahda), Hichem Mechichi (appointed by Saïed himself, only to be ousted by him in July 2021), and Ali Larayedh.
The blacklist extends to former ministers, presidents of the bar and judicial associations, leaders of journalists’ unions, university professors, economists, and prominent business figures. All are branded as traitors to the nation and to the “true revolution,” according to the rhetoric of the occupant of the presidential palace in Carthage, who casts himself as the people’s champion against corruption and misconduct.
Cover photo: Demonstrators hold a banner depicting detained lawyer and TV presenter Sonia Dahmani, with the message in Arabic: ”Release Sonia Dahmani”, during a demonstration organized by the family of lawyer and former judge Ahmed Souab, alongside hundreds of civil society activists, representatives of national and human rights organizations, and journalists in Tunis, Tunisia, on April 25, 2025. (Photo by Chedly Ben Ibrahim / NurPhoto via AFP)
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