The party offices in Tripoli were raided by a military brigade under the Supreme Security Committee last November and closed by order of the prosecution.
Ali Tekbali and Fathi Sager are apparently the first men to be tried on such charges since the uprising, which toppled Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.
“It’s been almost two years since Libya guaranteed freedom of expression in its constitutional declaration. The authorities must stand by that pledge and urgently repeal all laws, which criminalize freedom of expression and assembly, and impose the death penalty,” Hadj Sahraoui said.
“It is outrageous to think that speaking out on women’s rights has become a crime punishable by death at a time when Libyan women are calling for increased participation in public life and the Constitution-drafting process.”
Ali Tekbali, who takes responsibility for designing the cartoon in protest at conservative men’s opposing women’s right to education, says he found the picture by browsing on the internet for a bearded man.
He told an Amnesty International delegate who observed the first hearing of the men’s trial in May, “The main point of the cartoon was to show that women are not buckets of sin walking on the street, as these men think. A society cannot prosper without the two sides working together.”
(Source: Amnesty International)
