Case History
Mohammed Abbou, an Internet writer, lawyer, and human rights activist, was arrested on March 1, 2005, for an article published on the Internet nine months earlier that denounced torture in Tunisia.
Following his arrest, Mohammed Abbou, who is a member of the National Council for Freedom in Tunisia (Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie, CNLT), was taken on April 9 to a prison in Tunis. Abbou was sentenced during the night of April 28-29, 2005, to two years in prison for an incident at a 2002 conference in which the lawyer allegedly attacked a colleague. Reportedly, no evidence was presented aside from an unsigned medical certificate. Tunisian lawyer and human rights activist Radhia Nasrawi has claimed that “a number of witnesses would have been able to testify that no assault was committed during this conference in 2002.” Abbou was also sentenced to 18 months for “having published information that would disturb public order” and for “insulting the judiciary” in an article posted on the Tunisnews web site in August 2004, which compared torture committed against political prisoners in Tunisia to abuses carried out by U.S. soldiers in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.