TUNIS: Tunisian police took Ahmed Gam from the shop where he worked, accused him of looting during recent protests, and beat him so badly during his detention last month that he lost a testicle, he said.
Lying in bed in his parents’ home in Bennane, near the coastal city of Monastir, Gam, 21, could not stand without help and cried as he described police beating and burning his genitals.
His account was supported, in part, by a hospital report viewed by Reuters.
Tunisia is widely seen as the sole relative success story of the 2011 “Arab spring” revolts for its democratic advances. It holds regular elections and has a press that criticises the state.
But Gam’s case is one of at least 100 in which, a Tunisian and international rights group says, security forces recently used violent abuse after people engaged in protest and dissent, freedoms won during the revolution 10 years ago.
The protests, which began on Jan. 15, the day after the 10th anniversary of the revolution, have…