Three European women with feminist protest group Femen arrived in Paris on Thursday after they were freed from a Tunisian jail where they were held for baring their breasts in public.

The three, two Frenchwomen and a German, were released from a prison in northeastern Tunisia on Wednesday after an appeals court suspended their sentences when they apologized for their protest.

Three European women with the radical protest group Femen, jailed in Tunisia for baring their breasts, apologized at their appeals trial on Wednesday and promised not to repeat the protest.

"I regret this act and I apologize," Josephine Markmann, the German member of the group, told the judge, who said Muslim law prohibited such acts.

A Moroccan father of five died after setting himself on fire in the central Meknes region in protest at having his application for a residency permit rejected, a human rights activist said on Tuesday.

The incident took place on Monday in the town of Sebaa Ayoun, where Abdelkabir al-Atawi, 50, needed the permit to avoid having to pay the hospital fees for his wife who was sick, said Habid Benkarroun, the Meknes representative for the Moroccan Association of Human Rights.

Six people belonging to Tunisia's hardline Salafist movement have each been handed five year jail sentences for torching an important Sufi shrine, the country's Sufi union said on Tuesday.

"It's the first time such a sentence has been pronounced. It shows that the law can be applied in Tunisia when the political will exists," Mohamed El Heni, one of the union's leaders, told Agence France Presse.

A Tunisian court on Monday charged two musicians and a journalist implicated in violence that erupted last week at the trial of a rapper who was controversially jailed for two years for insulting the police.

Aymen Feki and Moustapha Fakhfakh, and French-Tunisian journalist Hind Meddeb, who was not in court having fled the country on Sunday, are to be tried on October 7 for abusing public officials in the course of duty, and attacks on public morals, according to their lawyer.

Three women staged a topless protest Wednesday outside the Tunisian embassy in Madrid calling on Tunis to free three fellow activists detained for a bare-breasted anti-Islamist demonstration in the north African nation.

The members of radical feminist group Femen removed their shirts to show their breasts and messages daubed on their bodies calling for the release of the trio who are behind bars in Tunis.

Three European activists with radical women's protest group Femen were handed four-month jail sentences by a Tunisian court on Wednesday for staging a topless anti-Islamist demonstration last month, one of their lawyers said.

"The judge condemned the three Femen activists to four months and one day in prison for an attack on public morals and indecency," Souheib Bahri told Agence France Presse.

Tunisia turned away on Friday eight Muslim preachers who had come from the Gulf to deliver sermons across the country, the interior ministry said on its Facebook page.

"The ministry... has banned the entry of eight people who had come from the Gulf to to carry out religious activities," the statement read, without giving any further details.

A roadside bomb targeting a Tunisian army vehicle killed two soldiers and wounded two others on Thursday in Mount Chaambi, near the border with Algeria, the military said.

"At around 7:45 am (0645 GMT), two soldiers were killed and two others wounded when a device exploded as their vehicle passed by in the area of Doghra of Mount Chaambi," said spokesman Mokhtar Ben Nasr.

Three European women went on trial in Tunis on Wednesday for holding a topless anti-Islamist protest, and their French lawyer said he was confident they would escape prison despite the threat of jail sentences.

Pauline Hillier and Marguerite Stern from France, and Josephine Markmann from Germany arrived in court around 0930 GMT wearing the traditional Tunisian headscarf, or safsari.