Tunisian court reduces prison sentence for three condemned to 30 years in prison for smoking cannabis

A court in the Tunisian city of El Kef has slashed to 2 years the prison sentence of three young man arrested in January and condemned to 30 years in jail for possessing and smoking cannabis, a substance banned by the North African country.

The court ruling came following a public outcry against the city’s first instance verdict in January. Citizens as well as civil society and human rights organizations lambasted the judicial decision and called for amending Law 52 which prohibits the consumption, cultivation and circulation of narcotics under penalty of imprisonment of at least one year and a fine from 1000 dinars.

Former Prime Minister Youssef Chahed had also called for a modification of the law and proposed to increase the prison terms only for drug traffickers.

A spokesman for the court in Kef in northern Tunisia, Mohamed Faouzi Daoudi, had defended back then the court ruling, saying it was “not just about drug use, but also the use of a sports field for their consumption.”