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CPJ calls on Tunisian authorities to end harassment of jailed commentator Sonia Dahmani

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CPJ calls on Tunisian authorities to end harassment of jailed commentator Sonia Dahmani

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New York, November 12, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Tunisian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release political commentator Sonia Dahmani, ensure she receives urgent medical care, and end her judicial harassment. 

On November 11, the Tunis Court of First Instance postponed Dahmani’s criminal hearing, regarding her media comments on prison conditions in Tunisia, to an unspecified date due to missing documentation, her lawyer Sami Benghazi told CPJ. 

During the hearing, she appeared fragile and broke down in tears, saying, “I want to go home.” 

Dahmani, who is also a lawyer, is serving a nearly five-year sentence on three convictions, under cybercrime Decree-Law 54, and could face another 20 years if convicted in two outstanding cases. She lives in a tiny shared cell, without adequate clothes in freezing temperatures, and says she was sexually assaulted by a guard after her arrest in 2024, her sister Ramla told CPJ. 

Dahmani’s health has deteriorated in Tunis’ Manouba Prison, where she has been denied adequate medical care for health problems that developed during detention, including diabetes, thyroid problems, high blood pressure, and back and shoulder pain, said exiled Ramla, who has been sentenced to jail in absentia for her sister’s work. 

“Tunisian authorities must free Sonia Dahmani immediately and bring an end to this horrific judicial harassment that stems solely from the peaceful exercise of free expression,” said CPJ Chief Programs Officer Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Her imprisonment and mistreatment show that Decree-Law 54 has become a systematic weapon to punish dissent and silence Tunisia’s independent voices.”

On November 7, the appeals court summoned Dahmani for a hearing in a case for which she had initially received a two-year sentence for “spreading false news” and “inciting hate speech” in 2024 over her remarks on IFM radio and Carthage Plus television channel about racism against migrants in Tunisia. Upon her request, the hearing was postponed to November 21.

Dahmani was arrested on May 11, 2024, after masked police raided the Bar Association headquarters in Tunis, where she had taken refuge.

Dahmani’s harassment is part of a wider crackdown on press freedom under cybercrime Decree-Law 54, enacted by President Kais Saied in 2022, which has been denounced by CPJ for being used to target journalists, political commentators, and lawyers. 

CPJ calls on Tunisian authorities to:

  • ensure that all laws regulating media and online expression comply with international human rights standards, 
  • restore protections under Decree-Law 115 of 2011, which guaranteed press freedom and the protection of journalistic sources.
  • ensure full remedy for everyone detained under Decree-Law 54, including adequate medical care, unhindered access to legal counsel, and fair, transparent hearings.

CPJ calls on Tunisia’s international partners to use all possible political and economic leverage, including bilateral dialogues and engagement, to press Tunisian authorities to:

  • free Dahmani, 
  • respect Tunisia’s obligations under international human rights law, and 
  • push for tangible progress in protecting journalists, commentators, and other critical voices.

Unless Tunisian authorities act swiftly to reverse this repressive trajectory, the country’s fading reputation as a media-freedom pioneer in the Arab world will be in tatters.

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