Chadha
Haj Mbarek

Background and Work

Chadha Haj Mbarek is a Tunisian journalist who worked as a social media content editor at Instalingo, a content company in Sousse. She was prosecuted in the Instalingo case during a period of sharp democratic backsliding. Since President Kais Saied's consolidation of power in 2021, the space for independent voices has contracted dramatically. Defenders, journalists, and opposition figures have faced a cascade of arrests under security laws and anti-terrorism provisions repurposed to criminalize dissent.

Her work placed her in a landscape where advocacy itself had become grounds for prosecution. The Tunisian state increasingly relied on articles of the Penal Code designed to protect national security, deploying them against individuals whose activities posed no credible threat to public safety but challenged the government's narrative and policies.

The Arrest

Security forces first arrested Chadha Haj Mbarek at her home in Sousse in 2021 and held her for five days. On 19 June 2023 an investigating judge dismissed the case against her, but the prosecution appealed, and on 22 July 2023 security forces raided her home and arrested her again pending investigation in the same case. Authorities invoked articles 61, 62 bis, and 67 of the Tunisian Penal Code, accusing her of undermining the external security of the state and attempting to change the form of government.

These charges have become a familiar tool in the government's arsenal. They carry severe penalties and are framed in vague language that allows prosecutors wide latitude. In practice, they have been applied to defenders and activists whose conduct consists of speech, association, and peaceful advocacy rather than any violent or coercive act.

Legal Proceedings

In October 2024 her trial was moved from Sousse to a court in Tunis. On 5 February 2025 she was sentenced at first instance to five years in prison for conspiring against state security and offending the President. The court proceedings reflected broader patterns of judicial complicity in the suppression of dissent. Trials under national security provisions in Tunisia have increasingly failed to meet international fair-trial standards, with defendants facing limited access to legal counsel, closed hearings, and verdicts that prioritize political loyalty over evidence.

Other defendants in the same case received far heavier sentences. The verdict sent a clear message to other defenders and activists: public criticism of the government carries concrete and severe consequences.

Appeal and Release

Her health deteriorated in detention, and in January 2026 her family said a serious illness had been diagnosed and demanded her release. On 14 January 2026 the Tunis Court of Appeal dismissed the charges of attempting to change the form of the state and of incitement, upheld only the conviction for harming the external security of the state, and reduced her sentence to two years suspended. She was released.

Context and Implications

Chadha Haj Mbarek's case is part of a wider pattern of repression in Tunisia. Since 2021, more than two dozen journalists, lawyers, politicians, and human rights defenders have been arrested under security and anti-fake-news laws. The judiciary has increasingly served as an instrument of executive power rather than an independent arbiter of legality and justice.

Her prosecution illustrates the transformation of Tunisia's legal framework into a mechanism for silencing dissent. Laws originally intended to address genuine threats to public safety have been repurposed to criminalize peaceful advocacy, political opposition, and criticism of government policy. The result is a climate in which defenders must choose between their convictions and their freedom, and in which the space for civil society continues to shrink.