Most of Tunisia’s 1,400 lawyers went on strike on Wednesday to protest what they say was police brutality against lawyers in a court of justice, lawyers said.
"An overwhelming majority of the lawyers walked out of the court in bunches in Tunis for the strike, except a small number of lawyers who are staunch government backers," lawyer Nejib Chebbi told Reuters.
The North African country’s bar association called for the one-day walkout to protest against what it called violence and mistreatment of lawyers by the police.
"Only one lawyer out of about 600 did not follow the strike in Sfax," lawyer Abdelwahab Maatar told Reuters by telephone from the main Tunisian southern city, which lies 270 km (170 miles) from Tunis.
Lawyers said about 200 police stormed Tunis’s main court last week to forcibly remove some 50 lawyers defending a colleague arrested for criticising the government over an invitation to host Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The country’s leading opposition parties vowed to stop Sharon from becoming the first Israeli leader to visit Tunisia in 57 years for a U.N.-backed World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November.
The International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), which campaigns for press freedom, said in a report last month that Tunisia was not a suitable summit host because it had censored newspapers, blocked Internet sites, imprisoned people for their opinions or media activities and used torture.
The government dismissed the report as "biased and inaccurate", insisting that Internet access was unhindered and that torture is forbidden.
Opposition parties and human rights groups, many of their members and leaders are lawyers, have said the visit by Sharon would bring "lasting shame" on the country.
The Israeli leader’s unpopularity in many Muslim countries like Tunisia stems from his government’s policies towards the Palestinians and his role as defence minister during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Lawyers and the country’s only independent human rights body, the Tunisian Human Rights League, said police arrested lawyer and rights activist Abbou Mohamed on March 1.
Abbou’s colleagues accuse the police of beating up some 50 lawyers the next day when they rallied to defend him at his appearance before an investigating judge.
The League and lawyers stress that Abbou, who has since been detained in Tunis’s main prison pending further investigation, was arrested for writing and publishing on the Internet two articles criticising the government for inviting Sharon and for what he described as the torture of political prisoners.
The government, which denies the existence of political detainees in the country’s jails, said Abbou was arrested because a "female lawyer is suing him for violence" against her and what the authorities said "his incitement of the population to infringe the laws".
Meanwhile, about 50 lawyers went on hunger strike inside Tunis’s main court building on Wednesday to put pressure on the government to set Abbou free.
"We will stop our hunger strike only when they release him," lawyer Raouf al Ayadi told Reuters.

Reuters - Tunis
09 - 03 - 2005