A Tunisian military court has sentenced opposition politician Olfa Hamdi to four years in prison on charges of plotting against state security and inciting the military to disobey orders, her lawyer Akram Moussa told Reuters on Wednesday. The charges stemmed from social media posts, Moussa said, according to AFP's reporting of the case. Hamdi, who leads the Third Republic Party, has repeatedly criticised President Kais Saied's rule and called for a transitional government and early presidential elections.

Hamdi holds dual Tunisian and United States citizenship. She was detained at Tunisia's main airport after disembarking from a flight in February, Reuters reported. She had been living abroad, running a consulting firm in the US, after briefly serving as head of Tunisia's national airline Tunisair. In the 2024 elections, when she was 36, she sought to run for president, but her candidacy was rejected because she did not meet the 40-year minimum age for candidates.

The four-year sentence comprises two separate two-year prison terms and total fines of 80,000 dinars — yaani, about $26,000 — her lawyer told Reuters. Hamdi was also sentenced in March in a separate case to two years in prison. Global human rights organisations have widely criticised the cases against her, AFP reported, and a US State Department spokesperson told AFP that Washington was “closely tracking the situation”, adding that the Trump administration's highest priority is the safety and security of American citizens.

Many opposition leaders, activists and journalists are behind bars in Tunisia, with critics accusing Saied of rolling back freedoms since his 2021 concentration of executive power, Reuters reported. Saied rejects the accusations, saying he is not a dictator and that the law applies to everyone regardless of their position. Thousands of Tunisians joined the largest protest against Saied in years last weekend, accusing him of undermining democracy and mishandling the economy, Reuters reported.