A Tunisian appeals court upheld Monday the 7-year sentence for a man convicted of blasphemy for posting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook.
Jaber Majeri was convicted March 28 for posting images of the prophet purportedly being intimate with one of his wives. He was sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison and fined $800.
A friend of his, Ghazi Beji, was also wanted in the same case, but he fled the country and was later convicted and sentenced in absentia.
The stiff sentence shocked many Tunisians and was seen as a sign of the new importance of Islam in Tunisia after the North African country's secular dictatorship was overthrown last year. [Associated Press] Read more
