A court in Tunisia has handed a suspended jail sentence to a woman who hurled racist slurs at her daughter’s school teacher after he threw her daughter out of class for her behaviour.
The judgment has been touted by campaigners as the first implementation of the anti-racism law passed last October.
The woman was given a suspended sentence of five months and a 400 dinar fine. 300 dinars were for the racist abuse while the rest was for insulting a state employee.
Offenders can serve jail time of up to one year and fined 1,000 dinars ($350, 300 euros) for making racist insults in the new law passed October 9, 2018.
The law covers incitement, spreading and advocating racism, belonging to an organization that supports discrimination, and making racist threats, and are punishable by one to three years in prison and carry fines of up to 3,000 dinars.
The black minority in Tunisia trace their discrimination to the days of slave trade when it was a vassal of the Ottoman empire. Although slave trade was abolished in 1846, the minority continues to experience discrimination and even physical assault based on the colour of their skin.