Protesters assembled at a courthouse in central Tunis on the morning of May 28, waving placards as preliminary hearings got underway in a highly charged and unusual criminal case of blasphemy.

On May 6, the Tunis prosecutor for the Court of First Instance charged blogger and student Emna Chargui, 27, with “offending authorized religions” and “inciting hatred between religions” after a Ramadan Facebook post ignited furor across Tunisian social media. The case has roiled Tunisia’s largely conservative society, igniting impassioned protests among human rights activists and exposing deep cultural divides in a nation that has been widely regarded as a bastion of free speech in the Arab world. 

Chargui uploaded a satirical image earlier in the month to her Facebook profile titled “The Sura of Corona,” a post that seemed to imitate a Quranic verse in diction, flow and visual appearance. Lyrically invoking events of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world in recent months, the verse described a virus from China that will eliminate the differences “between kings and slaves,” slipping in a final line about washing your hands with good soap. The piece was reportedly penned by a friend living in neighboring Algeria. 

Online reaction to the post was swift and overwhelming, as enraged messages lit up social media during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, even drawing condemnation from Issam Chebbi, secretary-general of the Al-Jomhouri party. In a Facebook post, Chebbi urged the judiciary to prosecute Chargui, claiming that “the state is charged with protecting the sacred and prohibiting any infringement.”