Tunisia’s Opposition Leader Sentenced to Year in Prison

Welcome back to World Brief, where Tunisia’s main opposition leader is sentenced to a year in prison, Ukraine defeats a Russian superweapon, and hundreds of people are feared dead from a Myanmar cyclone.

Tunisia took another step toward autocracy on Monday when a judge sentenced Ennahda party opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi to one year in prison. The 81-year-old Ghannouchi was charged with incitement after giving a funeral eulogy last year saying the deceased “did not fear poverty, ruler, or tyrant.” A member of a police union filed a complaint alleging that “tyrant” referred to police officers. In a statement posted on Facebook, the National Salvation Front opposition coalition, which includes Ghannouchi’s party, denounced the ruling, saying it “provides further evidence that arbitrariness has replaced the law in public life, and that no critic, regardless of their position or affiliation, is safe from having their freedom confiscated and being thrown into prison.”

The former parliamentary speaker and co-founder of the Islamist Ennahda party is one of the most prominent critics of Tunisian President Kais Saied and has labeled Saied’s 2021 power grab and subsequent dissolution of parliament a “coup.” Ghannouchi first appeared in court in February on terrorism-related charges for allegedly plotting against state security. Ghannouchi was also accused of threatening civil war if Saied barred Ennahda from politics. More than 20 of Saied’s political opponents have been arrested this year, with Saied saying any judge who freed them could be accused of abetting “traitors.”

This is not Ghannouchi’s first time under political fire, Human Rights Watch’s Eric Goldstein explained in Foreign Policy. The moderate Islamist served jail time as a political prisoner in the 1980s and then lived in exile for decades in the United Kingdom. Upon returning after Tunisia’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution, he acted as speaker of parliament before being removed in 2021 when Saied sent tanks to shut down the chamber. Since then, Saied’s “assault on human rights has been a steady drip, drip rather than a massive show of force on day one,” Goldstein wrote.

Tunisians have faced food shortages, soaring inflation, and economic crises since Saied came to power in October 2019. Unrest erupted almost two years later, when Saied suspended parliament and dismissed then-Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi from office. Thousands of people have since protested Saied’s regime. In response, Saied has cracked down on political dissidents, banning all Ennahda office meetings and closing the National Salvation Front’s headquarters.

“If Tunisia has any hope of addressing its economic crisis, Saied will need to undertake serious structural reforms and secure broad public support,” argued U.S. Sen. Chris Coons and U.S. Rep. David Price in Foreign Policy. “Ultimately, strengthening Tunisia’s economy requires reviving its democracy.”

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What We’re Following

Superweapon fail. Ukrainian forces claimed to have shot down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles early Tuesday morning. Prior to Tuesday’s barrage, the Kremlin boasted the Kinzhal was an all but unstoppable superweapon able to travel up to 10 times the speed of sound. This defeat was Ukraine’s first time stopping an entire volley of hypersonic missiles at once, demonstrating the effectiveness of new Western air defenses. In total, Russia fired 18 missiles at Kyiv during that Tuesday morning attack, all of which were intercepted, Ukrainian military officials said.

Meanwhile, Russian officials arrested an individual who worked at the U.S. consulate in Vladivostok for more than 25 years on Monday. Robert Shonov, who some reports indicate is a Russian national, stands accused of conspiracy and collaborating with a foreign state on confidential information; he faces up to eight years in prison. Shonov is being held in Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo Prison, where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has also been held after being detained in March on espionage charges. The U.S. State Department strongly condemned the arrest but did not specify its next set of actions.

Cyclone Mocha. Hundreds of people are feared dead in Myanmar on Tuesday after a devastating cyclone ripped through the Southeast Asian nation this weekend. Humanitarian groups are saying Cyclone Mocha may be one of the deadliest, most powerful cyclones to ever hit the region. Myanmar’s ruling military junta designated the western Rakhine state a “disaster area” on Monday after mass flooding cut telecommunication lines and destroyed refugee camps there.

Myanmar’s minority Rohingya people living in internally displaced persons camps in the state were most affected by the natural disaster. In 2017, government-led forces cracked down on millions of Rohingya, displacing thousands in Rakhine. Many countries have since accused the state of genocide. Now, thousands of those individuals are again displaced.

Lasso goes to trial. Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso appeared before his country’s National Assembly on Tuesday to begin a dayslong impeachment trial. This is the second time Ecuador’s parliament has tried to remove Lasso from power since he became president in May 2021. Lasso is accused of allowing an embezzlement scheme between a state-owned oil transportation company and a private tanker company to take place. The president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying the contracts in question were from before he took office and the charges against him are a “systematic and mafia-like attack.”

Two-thirds of the National Assembly, or 92 members, must vote against Lasso for the Creating Opportunities party founder to be removed from office. In June 2022, when Lasso faced his first impeachment trial, his opponents only secured 80 votes. The likelihood of Lasso surviving his second impeachment trial is slim, though, particularly after the National Assembly voted to reelect Virgilio Saquicela, an independent in favor of impeachment, as the parliament’s president.

Stews, proteins, and jollof rice. These scrumptious dishes and many more propelled Nigerian chef Hilda Baci to glory on Monday, when she set a new world record for the longest amount of time spent nonstop cooking, totaling 100 hours. According to the 27-year-old Baci, she wanted to break the record of almost 88 hours to highlight Nigerian cuisine and show how hardworking and determined Nigerian youth are.