Rached Ghannouchi, one of Tunisian President Kais Saied’s main political opponents, was condemned to one year in prison. This was announced by a lawyer from his defense committee, Monia Bouali. Ghannouchi was arrested last April on charges of conspiracy against the state, and then put on trial for incitement. He was sentenced in absentia, i.e. in his absence, because he had refused to appear at trial, believing that the charges against him were politically motivated.
Ghannouchi is 81 years old and is leader of the opposition party Ennahda, Islamist and moderate. President Saied has long been eroding the Tunisian democratic system and the freedoms obtained after the “Arab Spring”, the set of revolts that began in 2011 in various countries of North Africa and the Middle East which led to the ousting of authoritarian regimes in power for decades . In the last year Ghannouchi had already been accused of crimes related to the financial management of Ennahda and to the alleged aid that he would have given to Islamist extremists who wanted to go to Syria to fight the jihad. As with the conspiracy and incitement charges, Ghannouchi had always claimed he was innocent.