Tunisian authorities grabbed opposition lawyer Ayachi Hammami from his house near Tunis after an appeals court hit him with a five-year prison sentence for terrorism charges and plotting against the state. The conviction came from a sketchy mass trial where roughly 40 defendants got slammed with sentences reaching up to 45 years, and rights groups are calling the whole thing politically motivated garbage aimed at silencing critics of President Kais Saied.
Hammami dropped a pre-recorded video saying he was starting a hunger strike because the charges were pure political retaliation, and Human Rights Watch says most of the convicted people just did normal political stuff like meeting with diplomats. The arrests show how far the country has fallen since the Arab Spring, when street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi torched himself and sparked democratic revolutions across the region, and for a decade, the place actually ran free elections before sliding back toward authoritarian rule.
Hammami dropped a pre-recorded video saying he was starting a hunger strike because the charges were pure political retaliation, and Human Rights Watch says most of the convicted people just did normal political stuff like meeting with diplomats. The arrests show how far the country has fallen since the Arab Spring, when street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi torched himself and sparked democratic revolutions across the region, and for a decade, the place actually ran free elections before sliding back toward authoritarian rule.
