TUNIS, Tunisia: A Tunisian court on Wednesday overturned a journalist’s five-year jail term for revealing information about the security services, his lawyer said, paving the way for a retrial.
Khalifa Guesmi, a reporter for Tunisia’s most popular radio station, Mosaic FM, was convicted in November and sentenced to a year in prison, which was later increased to five years on appeal.
Rahl Jallali, Guesmi’s lawyer, told the media that the Court of Appeal annulled the five-year sentence and ordered that the case be reviewed in the Court of Appeal.
He said the journalist should be released by Thursday morning.
According to his lawyer, the journalist is still charged under Article 34 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, according to which anyone who publishes information “for the benefit of a terrorist organization” is “sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.”
Journalists and representatives of civil society gathered in Tunis on Wednesday to support Guesmi and demand his immediate release.
Local and international NGOs launched numerous calls for his release, denouncing his five-year prison sentence as a “rigged sentence” and “a major failure for the justice system.”
They argue that press freedom in Tunisia has declined significantly since President Kais Saied took full control of Tunisia in July 2021.
Guesmi, who has been in prison since September 3, was found guilty of “participating in the intentional disclosure of information related to interception, intrusion and audio-visual surveillance or data collected therein.”
He was detained for a week in March 2022 after publishing information on his website about the destruction of the “terrorist group” and the arrest of its members.
