THOUSANDS took to the streets of Tunis on Saturday to demand the release of an LGBT activist who has been jailed for insulting the police.

Rania Amdouni was the target of a vicious smear campaign by officers, who plastered photographs of her across social media after she took part in protests against police repression in January.

Police unions also posted her name and address, along with derogatory comments, placing her at serious risk of violent attack.

Her lawyers said that she was jailed for six months on Thursday after she went to the police station to raise a complaint over intimidation.

Ms Amdouni’s detention has sparked outrage, with people flooding the streets of the Tunisian capital in anger, demanding her immediate release.

They carried photographs of her and placards with the slogans: “Never retreat, never surrender the resistance” and “Freedom is a must.”

Protester Emna Sahli said that demonstrators wanted the release of all Tunisians detained during the past two months of protests against police repression, poverty, corruption and unemployment.

“A large number of people have been arrested. This has never happened — even during the dictatorship,” she said, referring to the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The former president was ousted 10 years ago in a move that sparked the so-called Arab Spring and the toppling of regional dictators. 

Tunisia had been held up as a success story, being the first of those countries to make the transition to democracy. 

But it has been stifled by political corruption and a stagnating economy, with rising prices and state-owned companies pushed to the brink of bankruptcy.

The country’s debt has risen to 40 per cent of GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with Tunisia under pressure to open the country up to loans and structural reform packages.

A series of political crises has seen nine governments in Tunisia since Ben Ali was removed from power in 2011. There have been mass anti-government protests on the streets since the start of the year.

But the state has clamped down on dissent, with around 1,000 protesters arrested since January, according to human rights groups. Many are still behind bars with activists demanding their immediate release.