September 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance of Jenduba (Tunisia) has sentenced this Wednesday to 20 months in prison the opposition presidential candidate Ayachi Zamel, one of the two rivals of the Tunisian president, Kais Saied, just a few weeks before the presidential elections that will take place on October 6.
Court spokesman Allah Eddine al Awadi confirmed that Zemal and two other people had been convicted of fraudulently collecting support for their campaign without obtaining permission from a citizen to use their data, Tunisian radio station Mossaique FM reported.
The court sentenced Zamel to eight months in prison for using a certificate containing false data and to one year for participating in the processing and transfer of personal data to third parties without the permission of the person concerned.
The other two individuals have been sentenced to eight months in prison for deliberately issuing a certificate containing materially false data and to another year for processing personal data of third parties without their permission.
Zamel was arrested on 6 September, just hours after being provisionally released. This would not be the first time that a candidate has run in elections from prison – in 2019, businessman Nabil Karui reached the second round while in prison.
Saied assumed additional powers in 2021 when he shut down the elected parliament, dominated by the Islamist party Ennahda, and went on to rule by decree before assuming authority over the judiciary, a move that took over all state powers and was widely seen by critics as a self-coup.
The opposition, which is largely based around the National Salvation Front (FSN), has been denouncing the president’s authoritarian drift for more than two years and has demanded his resignation, especially in light of the wave of arrests of opponents, activists and journalists, as well as the low participation rates in the constitutional referendum and the elections held since then in Tunisia.
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