Is every balanced pre-abelian category abelian? That is, given an additive category $\mathcal{A}$ in which cokernels and kernels exists, such that every morphism, which is a mono- and an epimorphism, is an isomorphism; does it follow that $\mathcal{A}$ is abelian? Note that it would suffice to prove that the canonical morphism $coim(f) \to im(f)$, where $f$ is an arbitrary morphism, is a mono- and an epimorphism.
 
Note that the usual examples for non-abelian categories somehow suggest this (filtered modules, topological abelian groups). See also this [related question][1].


  [1]: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/41353/abelian-categories-vs-additive-categories