The “Madman of Tunis” Kaïs Saïed Sentences Citizen to Death Over a Simple Facebook Post
Tunisia, once hailed as a beacon of hope after the Arab uprisings of 2011, is now sinking into brutal arbitrariness. On Thursday, October 1, 2025, Saber Chouchane, a 41-year-old day laborer and father of three, was sentenced to death by the criminal chamber of the Nabeul court of first instance. His crime? Daring to post satirical criticism on Facebook against Carthage’s dictator, Kaïs Saïed.
Under the pseudonym “Kaïs Ettais” – “Kaïs the unfortunate” – Chouchane expressed himself in a modest digital corner: barely 260 followers, a handful of reactions per post. In other words, a voice almost invisible amid the noise of social media. Yet, in Saïed’s Tunisia, even the faintest spark of irony is hunted down as an existential threat.
The judicial persecution of this ordinary man exposes the regime’s totalitarian drift, where the death penalty is wielded to silence dissent. The charges are chilling in their absurdity: “insulting the president of the Republic,” “undermining the state’s structure,” and “spreading false news.” In plain terms: Kaïs Saïed places himself above the people, the Constitution, and any form of criticism, turning Tunisia into an open-air prison.
This monstrous verdict, unprecedented in its severity, lays bare the true face of a president who envisions himself as both supreme censor and supreme judge. Tunisian justice, now reduced to an instrument of oppression, executed without hesitation the will of a man clinging to power through fear and repression.
Saber Chouchane was no political leader, no organized dissident, no mass agitator. He was a father, a worker, a citizen who still believed in his right to express a free thought, however clumsy or ironic. His case demonstrates that in Saïed’s Tunisia, no one is safe. Any citizen can be branded an enemy of the state over a post, a joke, or a critique.
The death sentence handed down to Chouchane marks a red line: the shift of Tunisia into open dictatorship, where a man’s life weighs less than the oversized ego of a president who proclaims himself the nation.
The international community, already silent in the face of repeated abuses, now carries a heavy responsibility. To let such a crime of state go unchallenged is to legitimize the judicial murder of any Tunisian who dares to dream of freedom.
On October 1, Kaïs Saïed signed not only the death sentence of Saber Chouchane, but also the death certificate of the Tunisian people’s democratic hopes.
Translated from Abderrazzak Boussaid’s French article – le7tv
