A Tunisian man who had been sentenced to death over Facebook posts deemed offensive to President Kais Saied has been pardoned and released from prison, his lawyer and a human rights group say.
Saber Ben Chouchane left jail overnight and was at home with his family, his lawyer Oussama Bouthelja told news agencies on Tuesday, after a wave of criticism from human rights groups over the case.
Saber’s brother, Jamal Chouchane, also confirmed to the Reuters news agency that he had been freed while the rights group Amnesty International said in a statement that he had been released due to “a presidential pardon”.
Ben Chouchane, who was arrested in January 2024, had been sentenced to death by a court in Nabeul, east of Tunis, on Wednesday, Bouthelja told the AFP news agency.
His client had been found guilty of “insulting the president, the minister of justice and the judiciary”, spreading false news and some of his social media posts were also deemed to be incitement, Bouthelja added.
Bouthelja told AFP that he had filed an appeal against his sentence on Friday but was later informed Ben Chouchane withdrew it, allowing a presidential pardon to be granted.
Bouthelja said he had been “astonished” by the death sentence, which rights groups said represented a chilling new level of repression amid tightening restrictions on speech since Saied mounted a sweeping power grab in 2021.
Heba Morayef, regional director at Amnesty International, had described the verdict “as a significant escalation and an outrageous assault on human rights”.
Credit: aljazeera.com
