Tunisia overturns six-month term for inmate who refused to watch president

TUNIS - A Tunisian appeals court on Wednesday overturned an inmate's six-month prison sentence, handed to him after he had refused to watch a news segment about President Kais Saied, his lawyer told AFP.

The court "dismissed the case and nullified all proceedings in the case of the young man", lawyer Adel Sghaier said, without identifying his client.

Sghaier said his client was initially prosecuted under Article 67 of the penal code, which covers crimes against the head of state.

But the charge was later revised to violating public decency to avoid giving the case a "political" dimension, according to the lawyer.

The inmate had already been in prison over an unrelated case that was ultimately dismissed too, and his family only learnt of his second sentence when he was not released as expected, the lawyer said.

The Tunisian League for Human Rights had said the man in question was reported by a cellmate for having "expressed his refusal to watch presidential activities" broadcast on TV.

The NGO had condemned what it called a "policy of gagging voices that even extends to prisoners in their cells".

Sghaier acknowledged that his client had voiced insults and demanded the channel be changed when Saied's image appeared on TV.

He said the man blamed the president for "ruining his life" by striking a deal with Italy for the deportation of irregular Tunisian immigrants.

The inmate had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation.

Saied, elected in 2019, has ruled Tunisia by decree since a 2021 power grab, with local and international organisations decrying a decline in freedoms in the country considered the cradle of the "Arab Spring" revolts of the early 2010s.