Tunisia: Anger after 30-year prison sentence for a joint

Three young Tunisians were sentenced to 30 years in prison for smoking a joint. And this extremely harsh ruling has sparked outrage: several hundred protesters took to the streets of Tunis yesterday to denounce a «Police state». On social media, Tunisians are calling for the cannabis law to be relaxed or even for cannabis to be legalized.

The three men were sentenced by a court in Kef, a mountainous town in the northwest of the country, on January 20. The reason: they had smoked a joint in a soccer stadium. « L’One of the defendants, the security guard at the stadium in question, hid a quantity of cannabis in the locker rooms, and the three defendants consumed these narcotics at that sports facility.», explains the spokesperson for the court in El Kef, as reported by the Tunisian newspaper La Presse.

This court is considering two aggravating circumstances: the youths were «as part of an organized group» since three, and «in a public place», in this case a stadium. The cannabis law, known as «Law 52,» is therefore being enforced with the utmost severity. But the young people have filed an appeal. The case will be heard again in a few weeks.

20 % of prisoners for cannabis offenses

Act 52, still in effect today, dates from 1992. It dates back to the era of Ben Ali’s dictatorship, which lasted from 1987 to 2011. In the 1990s, the self-proclaimed president passed a very strict law against cannabis use. The reason was political: his brother, Habib, had just been arrested for international drug trafficking between the Netherlands, France, and Tunisia. Ben Ali then sought to distance himself from the situation.

And even though the «Arab Spring» of 2011 ousted Ben Ali from power, Law 52 remains in effect. It is relaxed in 2017, but remains very strict. According to France 24, more than 5,000 people are in prison for using cannabis. This represents 20 % of the prison population in Tunisia, reports RFI radio.

While waiting for a possible relaxation of the law, a coalition has been formed to help these young people, who have been sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Cannabis Liberation Front (FLC), which will be officially launched on February 26, will provide them with legal assistance in preparation for their appeal hearing. 

«We are working in coordination with a group of lawyers, as well as with public figures, to put an end to these convictions and to legalize cannabis use in Tunisia by presenting various economic, legal, and social approaches.», explains a member of the collective to La Presse.

In 2019, the lawyer Kais Ben Halima had founded the political party El Warka, «La Feuille» in Arabic. Its goal: to legalize the production, consumption, and sale of cannabis in Tunisia, «in the face of the collapse of the national economy, unemployment, and poverty among Tunisian youth».