A court in Tunisia has sentenced a 51-year-old man to death over Facebook posts deemed offensive to President Kais Saied and a threat to state security, his lawyer said Friday.

The defendant, who has not been identified, was convicted on Wednesday of three charges: attempting to overthrow the state, insulting the president and spreading false information online.

Judges said the posts incited violence and chaos and violated Tunisia’s penal code as well as the controversial 2022 cybercrime law, Decree 54. The ruling is the first of its kind in Tunisia.

Although capital punishment remains in Tunisia's penal code and civilian courts occasionally issue death sentences, none have been carried out since the execution of a serial killer in 1991.

Little influence online

In a statement on Facebook, lawyer Oussama Bouthelja said that his client had been in pretrial detention since January 2024.

He said the father of three is an occasional day laborer and suffers from a permanent disability caused by a workplace accident.

Bouthelja described him as having limited educational background with little influence online.

“Most of the content he shared was copied from other pages, and some posts received no engagement at all," Bouthelja wrote. “In court, he said his intent was to draw authorities’ attention to his difficult living conditions, not to incite unrest.”

The ruling is the latest to use Decree 54, a law that makes it illegal “to produce, spread, disseminate, send or write false news ... with the aim of infringing the rights of others, harming public safety or national defense or sowing terror among the population.”