In May, Tunisian lawyer and journalist Sonia Dahmani was handed her second conviction of the year. Her latest sentence, a two-year jail term, came in reaction to her criticism of poor prison conditions. She previously received an 18-month sentence for calling out the government’s anti-migrant policies. Dahmani faces five more charges under a 2022 cybercrime law that criminalises the spreading of what it calls ‘false information’. The jail sentences keep piling up in Tunisia.

Dahmani is one of many victims of president Kais Saied, who continues to steer Tunisia in an ever more repressive direction. Saied won a free and fair election in 2019, but in 2021 he removed the prime minister and parliament, ruling by decree instead. The cybercrime law was among the decrees he introduced. The following year, he rewrote the constitution to give himself near-absolute power, approved in a low-turnout referendum held after key opposing voices had been jailed. When he won his second term in 2024, credible opponents had been criminalised and barred from running. It’s all a long way from the democracy that sprang into life after the 2011 Jasmine Revolution, defended at crucial moments by civil society, as recognised by the award of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize to the National Dialogue Quartet.

Growing criminalisation

Saied’s repression operates behind a facade of legality, with the criminal justice system serving as a tool of presidential control. In 2022, Saied sacked judges who disagreed with him and gave himself the power to control judicial appointments. Courts now do his bidding and jail opponents. At least nine staff of civil society organisations have received prison sentences so far this year.

Among many others thrown into jail, journalists Borhen Bssais and Mourad Zeghidi received three-and-a-half-year sentences on trumped-up money laundering and tax evasion charges in January. They’d been detained since 2024. Their real crime was political criticism. In 2025, 37 journalists, lawyers, opposition politicians and other dissidents were found guilty of terrorism and plotting to destabilise Tunisia. Following a mass trial, some were given decades-long jail terms. A November 2025 appeal court hearing that defendants weren’t allowed to attend upheld almost all convictions and increased some sentences.

The latest phase of the crackdown is targeting anti-racism campaigners. Since 2023, Saied has deployed the populist strategy of attacking Black African migrants to distract from the economic problems he’s failed to address. He’s repeatedly accused migrants of being responsible for crime and disorder, fuelling violence against them from security forces and the public. He’s helped spread the racist conspiracy theory that Black African migrants are part of a western plot to replace the local population.

Saied has branded organisations that stand up for migrants’ rights as traitors and foreign agents. Vilification prepares the ground for incarceration. In March, Saadia Mosbah, president of Mnemty, a Tunisian association that fights against racism and other forms of discrimination, received a staggering eight-year sentence on bogus illicit enrichment and money laundering charges. Five of her colleagues were convicted alongside her. Mosbah has reportedly been subjected to physical violence and racism in jail. In 2018, she helped develop a law to combat racial discrimination, but that was before Saied took control.

Mnemty faces the threat of being closed down, part of an assault on associational freedoms that has seen dozens of other civil society organisations suspended. Hundreds more could face the same treatment. In 2024, courts ordered the closure of the Tunisian Council for Refugees. Last November, two of its leaders, Mustapha Djemali and Abderrazek Krimi, received two-year sentences for offences under a 1975 law on passports and travel documents.

No one appears to be beyond the state’s reach. In March, a judge ordered the pretrial detention of seven people on money laundering charges for their involvement in the first Global Sumud Flotilla, which last October attempted to take humanitarian aid to Gaza’s besieged population. Meanwhile being one of the Nobel Peace Prize recipients offered no protection for the Tunisian League for Human Rights. The group was slapped with a one-month suspension in April. Authorities also ordered a month-long suspension for independent media outlet Nawaat in October 2025.

Judges that don’t do Saied’s bidding are also at risk. Anas Hmedi, President of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates, has been subjected to criminal proceedings since 2022, with a summons on fresh charges issued in January.

For civil society organisations, suspension marks the start of a process that can lead to dissolution, and no organisation has won a court appeal against a suspension decision. Civil society organisations also face asset freezes, lawsuits and tax investigations. The combination of criminalisation, legal harassment and top-down vilification results in a pervasive chilling effect.

Meanwhile exiles risk being sentenced in absentia. Journalist Khaoula Boukrim, founder of the TUMEDIA site, fled to Paris in December 2025. She was given a four-year sentence on cybercrime charges in absentia earlier this month, effectively barring her from returning.

Europe says little

Tunisians continue to protest. Hundreds marched in the capital, Tunis, on 6 June to demand media freedoms and the release of political prisoners. Protesters in May also called out Saied’s failure to address the economic crisis. But they need international support.

Last October, Saber Ben Chouchane was handed a death sentence for criticising Saied on Facebook. Authorities interpreted his posts as constituting crimes of attempting to change the form of government, insulting the president and spreading false information. But this time the repression backfired. The severity of the sentence caused such an international outcry that Saied was forced to pardon and release him. This shows that international criticism can make a difference.

The European Parliament spoke up last November, passing a resolution calling for the release of political prisoners and the repeal of the false information provisions. But such gestures have limits, as shown by Saied’s dismissal of the resolution as ‘blatant interference’.

Resistance to autocratisation takes more than words, but the European Union (EU) isn’t acting. It’s in a weak position towards Saied because it pays the Tunisian government to help prevent migrants from crossing into Europe, and in April 2025, it classified Tunisia as a safe country of origin. This means it believes migrants can be deported there on the basis that the rule of law prevails and they’re not at risk of persecution, a claim that rings hollow for the many from civil society now in jail.

EU policies have contributed to the rising number of migrants in Tunisia, since people can make it there but no further. This makes them a ready target for Saied’s scapegoating. The EU must acknowledge its responsibility and change course. It must recognise that migrants’ rights in Tunisia aren’t being protected and that, in the current situation, only civil society can do that. In its dealings with Tunisia, it must insist that civil society freedoms are respected and people are free both to defend migrants’ rights and criticise the government’s decisions. Continuing silence will make it complicit in the consolidation of a dictatorship.

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