Journalist.
Tunisia's courts have become a mechanism for silencing the press, and Mourad Zghidi's imprisonment is part of that system.HuMENA Editorial
Mourad Zghidi is a Tunisian journalist sentenced in January 2026 to three years and six months in prison on money laundering and tax charges widely seen as retaliation for his journalism.
Mourad Zghidi is a journalist based in Tunisia. Details of his specific outlets and reporting focus remain limited in available documentation, but his arrest and prosecution align with a well-documented pattern of judicial harassment targeting the Tunisian press since 2021.
Tunisia's media environment has deteriorated sharply in recent years. Journalists who report on corruption, governance failures, or political repression face arrest under charges unrelated to the content of their work. Financial crimes — money laundering, tax evasion, and foreign-currency violations — have replaced direct censorship as the preferred legal mechanism for silencing the press.
Zghidi was arrested on 1 May 2024. Authorities charged him with money laundering, tax fraud, and disseminating false information. The charges followed the pattern established in dozens of other cases: prosecutors invoke financial statutes that shift the burden of proof onto defendants and carry sentences heavy enough to deter others in the profession.
No evidence has been made public linking Zghidi to criminal financial activity. The inclusion of a false-information charge suggests that the prosecution was at least in part a response to his journalistic work, though the state has not acknowledged that connection.
Zghidi remained in pretrial detention for more than eighteen months. On 22 January 2026, a Tunisian court convicted him and sentenced him to three years and six months in prison. Journalist Borhane Bessis, tried alongside him, received an identical sentence on the same charges.
The trial took place in a judicial system that has been systematically instrumentalized to prosecute journalists. Defendants in such cases are frequently denied access to evidence, held in prolonged pretrial detention, and sentenced in proceedings that lack the procedural safeguards required under international fair-trial standards.
No information is currently available regarding Zghidi's conditions of detention or his health. Tunisian prisons are severely overcrowded, and political detainees — including journalists — are often held in facilities where medical care is inadequate and family visits are restricted.
The case has drawn attention from international press-freedom organizations as part of the broader crackdown on independent journalism in Tunisia. Human rights groups have called for Zghidi's release and for an end to the use of financial and administrative charges as tools of political repression.
This case file was compiled by HuMENA's Tunisia research team from primary documentation, public filings, family-supplied legal documents, and confidential partner reporting. Editorial responsibility rests with the HuMENA Editorial Board. Where dates or facts are uncertain, the record errs on the side of the source material and notes uncertainty in the live archive at humena.org.
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