Saber Chouchen, a Tunisian citizen, detained since January 22, 2024, was arrested during his therapy session in Menzel Temime, an area of the Nabeul governorate. He remained there for an entire week without his family being informed, as they were unable to determine his whereabouts until a week later, due to their own personal efforts, according to his brother’s testimony

Saber remained imprisoned, as he was escorted to Belli prison on two occasions: first to the prison of Mornag, and second to prison of Borj El Amri. In fact, the Judicial pole for Anti-Terrorism handled his case but dropped it since there was no evidence of any terrorist activity.

The victim of violation was charged under Article 67 of the Penal Code for committing a heinous act against the president, and Article 72 of the same Code for assault intended to change the form of the state, a charge that could carry up to death penalty. He was also charged under the Second Paragraph of Article 24 of Decree N.54 of 2022 related to the diffusion of false information against a public officer, based on a number of posts in which he criticized the president.

During his detention, Saber was subjected to multiple violations of his fundamental rights, as he was denied access to medical treatment since he suffers from a disability in one of his hands.

And in his testimony, his brother insisted that Saber has been deprived of his right to visit, despite his particular health condition.

Saber remained in prison for more than a year and a half. Despite the expiration of the pre-trial detention period set by, he was still deprived of his freedom and he was brought before the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance of Nabeul. After the defense’s arguments and the review of forensic reports, which were prepared the day of the hearing, the Court decided to postpone the hearing to October 1, 2025 while keeping him in detention.

And on October 1,2025, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance sentenced Saber Chouchen to death on the grounds of his facebook posts that were classified as three occurring offenses that require the maximum penalty.

He was convicted of intentionally attempting to change the form of the state, encouraging people to attack one another with weapons and to cause chaos, killings, and theft across Tunisian territory, committing a heinous act against the President and deliberately using information systems to publish or spread fake or falsified news, documents, or data containing personal information or false claims with the intent to damage someone’s reputation, harm others materially or emotionally, or incite violence or hate speech.

It is worth noting that the charges brought against Saber Chouchen and the sentence issued against him were based on posts he published on a page with very few followers, as most of his posts received little to no interaction.

His brother also stated that the death sentence had a severe impact on him and further worsened his health, especially his psychological state.