Tunisian journalists on Thursday protested against "repressive" anti-terror laws they say are being used to intimidate the media after a broadcaster was jailed for five years earlier this week.
The rally follows a court's use of anti-terrorism laws on Tuesday to increase to five years a jail term handed to Khalima Guesmi, a journalist at Mosaique FM radio station, after he appealed a one-year sentence delivered in November.
Guesmi was found guilty of having intentionally disclosed "information relating to operations of interception, infiltration, audiovisual surveillance or data collection", his lawyer said after the latest ruling.
Several local and international rights groups and trade unions on Tuesday warned "against the seriousness of the repressive direction of the current authorities" and called on activists and civil society "to mobilise to defend freedoms and human rights".
These groups have criticised the decline in civic freedoms in Tunisia since President Kais Saied launched a sweeping power grab on 25 July, 2021.
