AMMAN: Suspected Russian jets killed at least 20 civilians and wounded dozens early on Thursday when they dropped bombs on two residential buildings in a besieged rebel enclave east of the Syrian capital, residents and a war monitor said.
They said at least four bombs flattened the two buildings in the town of Misraba, wounding more than 40 people, while at least ten people were killed in aerial strikes in nearby towns in the last rebel stronghold near the capital.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said 11 women and a child were among the dead in the strike in Misraba.
Video footage downloaded by activists on social media showed children and women being pulled from the rubble by rescue workers. The footage could not be independently confirmed.
Suspected Russian jets kill at least 20 civilians near Syrian capital: residents
Suspected Russian jets kill at least 20 civilians near Syrian capital: residents
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
