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Lawyer's prison sentence confirmed at new "sham" hearing

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has denounced as "disgraceful" the upholding of a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence imposed on lawyer Mohammed Abbou for posting allegedly inaccurate news online and jostling a female colleague nearly three years ago. Neither he nor his lawyers were allowed to contest the charges at a 10 June 2005 appeals court hearing.

"The Tunisian authorities have not bothered to pretend this disgraceful verdict was the result of a fair trial," RSF said. "We shall be interested to see how the European Union and the United States, whose diplomats were ordered out of the courtroom, will react.

"The moment has come to strongly denounce President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's repressive policies, with barely five months to go to the holding in Tunisia of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) dealing with the Internet."

French lawyer Guillaume Prigent, who was at the appeal hearing on behalf of RSF, said afterwards the defendant's basic rights had not been respected. The hearing lasted only a few minutes and the judge began by sending the diplomats out of the room because she said they were "making too much noise."

She then expelled the media and others, including the defendant's wife, leaving only the defence lawyers and legal observers from foreign NGOs in the courtroom.

Representatives of the United States, France, the European Union, Finland and Spain tried to attend the hearing. As well as Prigent, lawyers from the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Amnesty International and Lawyers Without Borders were present.