Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Ennahdha Movement, faces multiple issues due to popular demands for accountability, along with leaders of his movement, for the past ten years during which they held power in the country. They have caused political, economic, and social crises, as well as sowing social discord and carrying out political assassination operations.

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In the latest verdicts issued against him, the specialized criminal chamber at the Tunis Appeals Court sentenced Ghannouchi to 15 months in prison and imposed a fine of 1000 dinars, subjecting him to administrative supervision for three years. These sentences are related to charges of praise and glorification and incitement to hatred and enmity between races and religions, according to what was reported by Tunisian radio station Mosaique, citing its own sources.

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The case file is related to a complaint filed by a security unionist against Rached Ghannouchi after he eulogized one of the leaders of the Ennahdha Movement in southern Tunisia, considering him to have “resisted the tyrant” during his life, which the security unionist saw as a signal to security agents.

It is worth noting that Rached Ghannouchi had been initially sentenced on this case and was in a state of release. However, the Appeals Chamber decided to uphold Ghannouchi‘s conviction and increase the prison sentence to 15 months. For its part, the Ennahdha movement issued a statement late yesterday, in which it considered the charge to be baseless and devoid of any legal elements to prove the crime of takfir using the term “tyrant,” and that the word was arbitrarily taken out of its context.

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The statement clarified that Ghannouchi did not attend the trial session, indicating that from the early days of his arbitrary arrest, he chose not to appear before any judicial or security body, believing that his arrest and detention fall within the framework of targeting political opponents and subjecting them to political harassment. It should be noted that the term “tyrants” is used only by “terrorists” as it is derived from their extremist lexicon, and they usually target “security and military forces and the state in general.