Tunisia PM holds emergency meeting over unrest

Tunisia PM holds emergency meeting over unrest

January 24, 2016
tunisia
tunisia



Tunis — Tunisia’s Prime Minister Habib Essid held an emergency cabinet meeting Saturday, after authorities declared a nighttime curfew nationwide following the worst outbreak of social unrest since the 2011 revolution.

Essid met his defense and interior ministers before the cabinet session, as AFP journalists reported relative calm in towns rocked by clashes between protesters and police in recent days.

“Security-wise, it has started to stabilize,” Interior Ministry spokesman Walid Louguini told AFP, echoing Essid’s comments on Friday that the situation had been brought “under control.”

In a televised address to the nation on Friday, President Beji Caid Essebsi expressed understanding for the frustrations vented in impoverished regions of central Tunisia.

But he warned against “ill-intentioned hands” exploiting the legitimate grievances of demonstrators.

Anger erupted over the death on Jan. 16 of Ridha Yahyaoui, a 28-year-old unemployed man who was electrocuted when he climbed a power pole while protesting in the central town of Kasserine.

The unrest spread around the country, including to Tunis where shops were burnt and looted in one suburb, prompting the interior ministry on Friday to impose a 8:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew.

Calm returned to Kasserine on Saturday morning, an AFP journalist said, after a day of clashes.

In the nearby town of Sidi Bouzid — the cradle of the 2011 uprising — teenagers set fire to tyres but the situation was relatively calm.
Authorities arrested 261 people over the unrest and 84 for violating the curfew on Friday, the interior ministry said.


France on Friday pledged one billion euros ($1.1 billion) in development aid to Tunisia over the next five years, after Essid held talks with French President Francois Hollande.

The violent demonstrations over unemployment opened a new front of concern for Tunisia, already struggling from a foundering economy and the threat of terrorism after three major attacks last year.

A curfew from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. was declared because the attacks on public and private property “represent a danger to the country and its citizens,” the Interior Ministry said. Weekend sports events were canceled.
Tunisia’s unemployment stands around 15 percent, but is 30 percent among youth and in the Tunisian heartland that has long felt ignored by the powers-that-be in the capital — despite government promises of change.

On Friday, hundreds of unemployed graduates filed into Kasserine’s main administrative office demanding jobs. Others screamed from the top of the building before being escorted out by police, and still more held a sit-in inside the lobby.

“We want work, nothing less, nothing more,” said one of the unemployed youths, Rafik Nasri. “You see all these people are unemployed, the well-read, the intellectual, the non-intellectual, the peasant or not, they’re all demanding work.”

The overnight curfew was imposed after the violence in Kasserine, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) southwest of Tunis, began spreading to other towns this week. On Friday, roving groups pillaged a bank and looted stores and a warehouse in the working class neighborhood of Ettadhamen outside the capital. Security forces arrested 16 people.

Security forces used tear gas to repel the protesters attacking police stations and other official buildings with stones and Molotov cocktails. A day earlier, a police officer was killed after protesters in the town of Feriana, near Kasserine, flipped over his car, the government said.

Tunisia has been under a state of emergency since a suicide bombing in November killed 12 members of the presidential guard in the heart of Tunis — an attack that capped an unusually violent year for the country. That bombing, along with deadly attacks against the Bardo museum in Tunis and the resort of Sousse, were claimed by the Daesh group.

“Daesh, which is present in Libya at our borders, finds that the moment is opportune to act in Tunisia,” the president said.

On Thursday, Tunisian authorities said they intercepted four cars with armed men coming from Libya and chased them back across the border. On Friday, a Tunisian man was killed in an exchange of fire between Tunisian soldiers guarding a border post and a group of Libyans and Tunisians the Defense Ministry said were smugglers.

The unrest bred concern that Tunisia’s bid to become a full-fledged democracy may be at risk.

In Paris just before leaving for home, Essid, the prime minister, said the problem was not with democracy, but with the economy.

“We have a set of policies to try to solve this issue, which is one of this government’s main challenges,” he said after meeting with French President Francois Hollande. “We don’t have a magic wand. We can’t solve the problem of unemployment in one go.” — Agencies


January 24, 2016
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