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Tunisia · Europe · Geopolitics: the daily brief
Background

Press freedom and political detention

The public argument in Tunisia is about Decree-Law 54, whose article 24 was rewritten on 30 September 2026 to replace five years in prison with a fine. Both journalists sentenced to prison in 2026 were convicted under a different law, article 86 of the Telecommunications Code, which the amending decree does not touch.

Neither of the two prison sentences handed to journalists in Tunisia in 2026 came under Decree-Law 54, the law the whole public argument is about. Both came under article 86 of the Telecommunications Code, a law the journalists' union dates to Ben Ali's time. The amendment of 30 September 2026 rewrote article 24 of the decree and left article 86 alone.
Press freedom and political detention

President Kais Saied signed Decree-Law 54 on 13 September 2022, presented as a law against cybercrime. It replaced Decree-Law 115 of 2011, which had abolished prison for defamation and protected journalists' sources. Article 24 punished anyone who knowingly spread false news with five years in prison and a 50,000 dinar fine. A new decree-law, number 1 of 2026, appeared in the official gazette on 30 September 2026 and replaced that article. La Presse reports it changes nothing else in the decree.

The new article 24 drops prison for a first offence and sets a fine of 10,000 to 20,000 dinars. A repeat offence carries six months in prison and a 50,000 dinar fine. That is the same amount the old article imposed for a first offence. Said Benarbia of the International Commission of Jurists called the change a positive development, and told Al Jazeera that abusive prosecutions must end and those held arbitrarily be released. Saied has defended the decree, saying freedom does not mean spreading false news.

Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code carries one to two years for knowingly harming or disturbing others over public networks. A piece in Nawaat's blogs section calls it a complementary tool used alongside Decree-Law 54. Zied Dabbar of the journalists' union told Euronews on 2 October 2026 that rewriting one article does not end opinion trials: journalists are also tried under the anti-terrorism law and the penal code. The union's latest annual report counted 14 journalist prosecutions in a year, six under the decree and eight under other laws.

A Tunis court gave Zied El-Heni a year under article 86 on 7 May 2026 for criticising a judicial decision, and the Tunis appeal court upheld it on 26 June 2026. Haythem El Mekki got a year from the Sfax appeal court over a social-media post, after the first instance had dismissed it. He was living in France when the verdict came, and only El-Heni is in prison. The SNJT said on 15 July 2026 that the court had moved El Mekki's case from Decree-Law 54 to article 86.

Faouzi Daas, who chairs parliament's General Legislation Committee, said in January 2026 that revising the decree would top his committee's agenda. The revision came instead by decree from the presidency, and it leaves both prison sentences standing. Espacemanager reported on 29 September 2026 that El-Heni was still being held, and that the hearing in a separate case, in which he faces terrorism charges, had been put off to 16 October 2026.

58.49202250.11202349.97202443.48202540.432026
Tunisia's score in the RSF World Press Freedom Index · score out of 100 · Source: Reporters sans frontières
A higher score means more press freedom. Tunisia's rank over the same years went 94th, 121st, 118th, 129th and 137th of 180. Every point comes from the same RSF index, read year by year at rsf.org/en/index?year=YYYY. The scores use the method RSF adopted in 2022 and are not comparable with earlier years.
”I am ready to be tried for the acts alleged against me, but exclusively within the framework of Decree-Law 115 of 2011 on press freedom. Outside that framework, I consider myself a political prisoner”
Zied El-HeniJournalist, detained since 24 April 2026, his one-year sentence upheld on appeal in June 2026

The numbers

Decree-Law 54, article 24: the penalty since 30 September 2026
10,000 to 20,000 dinars
A fine of 10,000 to 20,000 dinars for knowingly using information and communication networks to produce, spread, publish, send or prepare false news, data or rumours, or documents that are fabricated, falsified or falsely attributed to others, in order to harm the rights of others, public security or national defence, or to spread terror among the population. The same fine covers the spreading of falsified documents, personal data or untrue allegations to defame a person, damage their reputation, cause them material or moral harm, or incite attacks or hate speech. A repeat offence carries six months in prison and a 50,000 dinar fine. The penalties are doubled when the target is a public official or someone of equivalent status.
La Presse
Article 24 as enacted in 2022: the penalty until 30 September 2026
Five years in prison and a 50,000 dinar fine for deliberately using information and communication networks to produce or spread false news, data or rumours, or falsified documents, in order to harm the rights of others, public security or national defence, or to spread terror among the population. Penalties were doubled when the target was a public official or equivalent. This was the wording the decree carried from September 2022 until it was replaced on 30 September 2026.
DCAF Legal Databases
Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code: the penalty
One to two years
One to two years in prison for anyone who knowingly harms others or disturbs their quiet over public telecommunications networks. The piece this comes from, in Nawaat's blogs section, calls the article a complementary tool used in tandem with Decree-Law 54, and calls its wording as imprecise as the decree's. The same piece cites a more recent count of 24 judicial cases brought against media professionals under Decree-Law 54, 21 of them opened by official institutions. Nawaat states that pieces in that section do not necessarily reflect its views.
Nawaat
Journalists prosecuted: three counts attributed to the same union
Al Jazeera reported on 2 October 2026 that the SNJT's latest annual report recorded 14 prosecutions of journalists between April 2025 and April 2026, six of them under Decree-Law 54. The same piece says the union has documented hundreds of journalists, bloggers, opposition politicians, lawyers and activists tried under the decree since it came into force in 2022. A piece carried in Nawaat's blogs section in July 2026 put the union's count at more than 60 journalists, lawyers and political opponents since the end of 2022. We found no count published by the SNJT itself, and those last two cover nearly the same people over nearly the same period without agreeing.
Al Jazeera
The journalists' union on the amendment, 2 October 2026
Zied Dabbar, the union's president, told Euronews that revising the decree by changing a single article and removing the prison sentence does not mean the end of opinion trials in Tunisia. He said journalists are tried under the Telecommunications Code, which dates from Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's time, and are sent to court under the anti-terrorism law and sometimes the penal code. On his account the union does not regard the amendment of article 24 on its own as enough, and he repeated its demand that jailed journalists be released and that journalists stop being prosecuted over their work.
Euronews
How the change was received, and what it leaves open
Oussama Bouagila, Reporters Without Borders' regional director for North Africa, told AFP that the organisation noted the disappearance of the five-year prison sentence it had denounced since 2022. He called the revision a move in the right direction, and said it does not go far enough to bring the decree into line with international press-freedom standards. Webdo also reports, from the Spanish agency EFE, that the authorities had not said what the new wording means for people already prosecuted or imprisoned under the old one.
Webdo
Haythem El Mekki: sentence and legal basis
One year in prison from the Sfax Court of Appeal, after the court of first instance had dismissed the case. The complaint came from the Habib Bourguiba university hospital in Sfax, over a social-media post about the situation inside the establishment. The SNJT said on 15 July 2026 that the appeal court had reclassified the case from Decree-Law 54 to article 86 of the Telecommunications Code, called for the sentence to be quashed on a cassation appeal, and restated its opposition to the use of article 86 against journalists. No ruling on that cassation appeal had been reported by 4 October 2026.
Réalités
Zied El-Heni: detention and sentence
One year, upheld
Arrested on 24 April 2026 and held in pretrial detention. The Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced him on 7 May 2026 to one year in prison under article 86 of the Telecommunications Code, over comments criticising a judicial decision. The Tunis Court of Appeal upheld the one-year sentence on 26 June 2026. Amnesty International says he was convicted solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression, and asks the authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally and to quash the conviction.
Amnesty International
Zied El-Heni's other cases: where they stood on 29 September 2026
Espacemanager reported on 29 September 2026 that the hearing in the recordings case, in which El-Heni faces charges of a terrorist character including forming a terrorist conspiracy, had been put off to 16 October 2026. The case started with a recording attributed to the former Ennahdha official Mondher Ounissi and the journalist Chahrazed Akacha. El-Heni said he had contacted people connected to the recording to check whether it was authentic, and he refused to say who had given him his information. At an earlier hearing the SNJT backed him, saying what he is accused of was part of his professional duty. The same report says he was being held in other cases, among them the one-year sentence under article 86 of the Telecommunications Code upheld on appeal on 26 June.
Espacemanager

What the comparison shows

Where they agree

Zied Dabbar and Faouzi Daas both said Decree-Law 54 had to be revised, one for the journalists' union, one for the parliamentary committee that would have done the revising. The revision came on 30 September 2026 by decree from the presidency, not by a vote, and it rewrites one article. Every voice here that speaks to the amendment says it does not go far enough, and nobody speaking for the presidency that issued it is among the voices.

Where they split

Dabbar and Daas treat Decree-Law 54 as a statute to be amended. El-Heni refuses that frame: he will accept a trial only under Decree-Law 115 of 2011, and outside it he calls himself a political prisoner. Trifi reads the prosecutions as one political pattern rather than separate criminal cases.

What nobody is saying

Dabbar names the Telecommunications Code, the anti-terrorism law and the penal code as what journalists are tried under. None of the voices here has asked for the Telecommunications Code itself to be revised.

Who says what

Zied Dabbar, President of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, the SNJT

Dabbar's demand is legislative rather than case by case: Decree-Law 54 must be revised without delay, because its use has spread from cybercrime into matters of opinion and expression. His union also opposes the courts' recourse to article 86 of the Telecommunications Code and insists press cases belong under Decree-Law 115 of 2011.

”l'élargissement de ses usages dans les affaires d'opinion et d'expression représente un danger pour l'avenir de la profession journalistique”the widening of its uses into matters of opinion and expression represents a danger for the future of the journalistic profession
Source: Directinfo · Tuesday, 12 May 2026 · Said at a Tunis seminar marking World Press Freedom Day; the wording quoted here is the French rendering carried by the state agency TAP and republished by Directinfo.
Haythem El Mekki, Journalist and columnist, sentenced on appeal to one year in prison and living in France

El Mekki announced his own conviction and read it as a message to critical voices. He says he has faced three judicial summonses since 2023, all of them tied to his broadcasts and his posts. On the Sfax case he says the first instance dismissed it before the appeal court convicted him, and that although the prosecution was opened under Decree-Law 54 the judgment rested on article 86, a change of legal basis that on his account does not alter the repressive logic. He had been living in France for several weeks when the verdict came.

”Aujourd'hui, Haythem est condamné à un an de prison. Le message a été bien reçu.”Today, Haythem is sentenced to a year in prison. The message has been well received.
Source: Le Courrier de l'Atlas · Thursday, 16 July 2026 · From a message El Mekki published after the verdict; the wording quoted here is as printed by Le Courrier de l'Atlas, whose Tunis correspondent wrote the piece.
Zied El-Heni, Journalist, detained since 24 April 2026, his one-year sentence upheld on appeal in June 2026

El-Heni's argument is jurisdictional. He says he is willing to be tried for the acts alleged against him, but only under Decree-Law 115 of 2011 on press freedom, and that outside that framework he considers himself a political prisoner. He first refused to appeal his one-year sentence, calling the refusal an act of resistance rather than an admission of guilt, and calling his detention arbitrary and the proceedings illegitimate. On 14 May 2026 he reversed that refusal and lodged an appeal, saying his supporters had asked him to keep the fight going, while holding to his rejection of any trial outside Decree-Law 115. The appeal court upheld the sentence on 26 June 2026.

”Je suis prêt à être jugé pour les faits qui m'ont été reprochés, mais exclusivement dans le cadre du décret-loi n°115 de l'année 2011 relatif à la liberté de la presse. En dehors de ce cadre, je me considère comme un détenu politique”I am ready to be tried for the acts alleged against me, but exclusively within the framework of Decree-Law 115 of 2011 on press freedom. Outside that framework, I consider myself a political prisoner
Source: Kapitalis · Friday, 8 May 2026 · From a message relayed by his relatives on his Facebook page on 8 May 2026, while he was still refusing to appeal; he reversed that decision six days later. The wording quoted here is the French rendering published by Kapitalis, not the original Arabic.
Bassem Trifi, President of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the LTDH

Trifi frames the prosecutions as a single political pattern rather than a series of separate criminal cases, and says civic and political work is being criminalised. He rejects the Ministry of Justice's accusation that the league breached a 2015 memorandum on prison visits, says the LTDH has never violated it or circulated false information, and objects to prisons being made hermetically closed places.

”le pouvoir politique en place n'écoute que lui-même et jette en prison quiconque n'est pas d'accord avec lui”those in power listen only to themselves and throw anyone who disagrees with them into prison
Source: Kapitalis · Wednesday, 10 December 2025 · Said at a press conference at the SNJT headquarters in Tunis on Human Rights Day, in reply to a Ministry of Justice statement about the league's prison visits; the wording quoted is the French rendering published by Kapitalis.
Faouzi Daas, Chair of the General Legislation Committee in the Assembly of People's Representatives

Taking over as chair of the General Legislation Committee, Daas said in January 2026 that amending Decree-Law 54 would head the agenda of the current session. He accepted that the way the decree has been applied has narrowed the political and media space, and pointed to the many prosecutions brought against citizens under it. His committee planned a series of wide hearings with the government, the SNJT, the bar, the magistrates' association, experts and civil society, with article 24 and its heavy penalties expected to be the central question.

Source: Webdo · Tuesday, 27 January 2026 · Said on Diwan FM and reported by Webdo on 27 January 2026. The report paraphrases rather than quotes him, so no verbatim wording is given here.

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