Tunisia: Ghannouchi handed 1 year prison term for ‘incitement’

A Tunisian court yesterday sentenced the head of Ennahda Movement, Rached Ghannouchi, to one year in prison for “incitement”, his lawyer Monia Bouali said.

In remarks to Arabi21, Bouali explained that the verdict was issued on charges of “incitement against the police” during a funeral eulogy he gave last year for a member of his Ennahda Party when he said the deceased “did not fear a ruler or tyrant, he only feared God”.

Ghannouchi did not appear in court when the verdict was issued because he was boycotting the investigation, she added.

The Ennahda movement slammed the ruling as “unjust” and “politically motivated” and called for Ghannouchi’s immediate release.

The Ennahda movement had announced in mid-April that Ghannouchi had been arrested by a security unit that raided his home in the capital and took him to an “unknown location” before it announced that he was undergoing interrogation at a security barracks in the capital. His family said he was not allowed to meet with his lawyer or have him present during the interrogation.

A day later security forces raided Ennahda’s offices, vacated them, shuttered them and banned all meetings of the Ennahda Party and the National Salvation Front across the country.

Twelve people, including Ghannouchi, were referred for investigation on charges of “committing a conspiracy to attack the internal security of the state, and committing an assault intended to change the system of the state, and inciting the people to attack each other.”

READ: 8 Arab figures call for Ghannouchis release