Montassar Abdelwahed

On 15 July 2025, Montassar (a middle-aged Tunisian man, married and father of four) was arrested in the street by plain-clothes security officers, who searched him without finding anything, then took him to his home and his mother’s home to search them without showing any judicial warrant, and without finding any offence. As he was being taken from his home, one of the officers snatched the phone of his 14-year-old daughter and slapped her in the face; Montassar became enraged, whereupon the officers beat him and hurled degrading insults at him and his children, before taking him to the Bouchoucha security barracks. On 16 July 2025, he appeared before the Bab Bnet court and was committed to prison on charges of drunkenness, disturbance and offending public morals, although his wife affirmed that he does not drink alcohol. His wife’s request to visit him the following day was refused. On 20 July 2025, she was informed that his health had deteriorated, without being told of his death; on arriving at the hospital she discovered that he had died, and a security officer attempted to attribute the death to an alleged “heart condition”, which his wife denied on the basis of normal medical test results obtained during Ramadan 2025. Later, a released prisoner stated that Montassar had been beaten by officers after he asked for painkillers and suffered a panic attack, and that he fell to the ground and never returned to his cell. His wife was subsequently subjected to harassment and summonses, and was pressured to testify against a person who had published a video condemning the incident.