Tunisia: Lawyers Assaulted for their Sidi Bouzid Stand · Global Voices
Lina Ben Mhenni

This post is part of our special coverage of Tunisia Revolution 2011.
Tunisian lawyers have been making a stand throughout  Sidi Bouzid’s events – and paying the price for it.
They have been protesting regularly to denounce what happened in Sidi Bouzid and the social situation in Tunisia. This is why the government has decided to ‘punish’ them. Every day, news of the kidnapping, arrest, or assault of lawyers is surfacing on social networking sites.
In her post, Lawyers’Demonstration Tuesday 28th, 2010,  Tunisian Girl wrote:
After that, the lawyers went into the first instance court and shouted the slogans again. They addressed some of them to the judges asking them to be independent.
Later in the afternoon, two lawyers who took part in the demonstration were arrested they are: Chokri Belaid and Abderrahmen Ayadi.
Nevertheless, December 31, 2010, presented the most horrible day for lawyers. Indeed, police officers did not hesitate to violently beat them when they were gathering in the Bar House located in front of the Courthouse of Tunis. Security forces used their truncheons causing many injuries for the lawyers.
On Twitter, netizens showed their support and spread the word about the assaults targeting lawyers:
Moalla tweeted:
Le 31 décembre 2010 restera à jamais comme le “vendredi de la matraque” pour les avocats tunisiens. Honte à la dictature! #SidiBouzid
Also on Twitter, Osama F Moushraf wrote :
تعرّض عشرات المحامين في تونس إلى اعتداءات عنيفة من قبل الشرطة http://bit.ly/hLq6Ty #sidibouzid RT
Netizens denounced what happened:
Assad Tounsi tweeted:
فضيحة فضيحة فضيحة فضيحة فضيحة فضيحة تونس .. المحامون يضربون ويعتقلون والشعب يتفرج
This post is part of our special coverage of Tunisia Revolution 2011.