Tunisia

A founder of the International Association for Solidarity with Political Prisoners and the Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Mohammed Abbou is a well-known Tunisian lawyer, husband, and father. He has been in the prison of the city of Le Kef since March 1, 2005.

On February 28, 2005, Abbou published an article on the Internet that "criticiz[ed] President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali for [inviting] Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to attend a global conference" and accusing relatives of the ruling family of corruption. Though he was arrested the day after this article appeared, he was charged instead for an article that he wrote in August 2004 which "compar[ed] conditions in Tunisian prisons to those in the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq."