GROMBALIA: Tunisian rapper Weld El 15 was acquitted on appeal yesterday of singing songs insulting to the police and has been freed, his lawyer and mother said.
The ruling comes amid ongoing human rights concerns under Tunisia’s Islamist-led coalition government, almost three years after a popular uprising ousted veteran strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and triggered revolutions across the region.
“The court in Grombalia has decided to free Weld El 15,” said Ghazi Mrabet after his client appealed a four-month jail term handed down earlier this month.
The mother of Weld El 15, whose real name is Ala Yacoubi, later said “Ala has been freed.”
Mrabet said the appellate decision “proves that a part of the justice system is independent, and I welcome this kind of verdict.”
The case goes back to August, when Weld El 15 and fellow rapper Klay BBJ were briefly detained after a concert they performed in Hammamet, south of Tunis.
A few days later they were sentenced to 21 months in jail without even being notified of a trial.
Klay BBJ turned himself in a few weeks later and was retried and sentenced to six months in jail, but then acquitted in mid-October and freed.
Weld El 15 remained on the run until December 5, when he turned himself in. In a retrial the same day, he was sentenced to four months.
Since then , he had been held in La Mornaguia prison in a Tunis suburb.
The court had convicted him of an affront to public decency and insulting public servants in his songs.
At the time, Mrabet said he would appeal, expressing concern that his client might “suffer bodily harm in prison.”
News of the verdict was welcomed by a support committee for the two rappers.
AFP
