This archive report was first published on 7 June 2020.
Published on June 7, 2020, a Frenchman and a Tunisian woman were convicted of public indecency in Tunisia after an altercation with police who arrested them while they were hugging in a car.
The couple, who maintain that they were not kissing, received a lighter sentence than the original term handed out at their October 4 trial, following widespread outrage on social media and in the press over the incident.
The man was handed four months in prison for public indecency and refusing to obey the police, while the woman was given a two-month sentence on the first charge only.
"It's an independent decision," said Sofiene Sliti, a spokesman for the public prosecutors' office. "What has been reported nationally and internationally is wrong — they weren't arrested for a kiss, the couple was naked," he added.
The couple's defence pointed to numerous flaws in the case, including hearings in Arabic which the Frenchman, who is of Algerian origin, did not understand.
