In an attempt to quell the riots in Tunisia, President Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali on Wednesday fired interior minister Rafiq Belhaj Qassem and ordered the release of all detainees held in connection with the demonstrations that have rocked the country since mid- December. And for the first time since the unrest, army troops were deployed in the capital in the early hours of Wednesday.
The rioting that has shaken Tunisia over recent weeks perhaps should not have come as a surprise, but nevertheless to some it did.
More than two weeks into the escalating riots that have seen many of the country’s towns and cities turned into battle zones, the situation in the small North African country appears to have spiralled almost out of control, with human rights groups claiming that at least 35 people have died in the riots, victims of live ammunition used by the police.
On Tuesday evening, the satellite television channel Al-Jazeera said the number had increased to 53, citing local union sources.
Footage was shown on television stations worldwide on Tuesday showing images of a demonstration in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzeid, in which hundreds of Tunisians chanted “the people want a succession of power” and “the son of a worker or farmer is stronger than you, slaughterer,” in references to the country’s ruler, President Bin Ali.
What began as a small uprising following the despairing act of a 26-year-old university graduate who set himself alight after local authorities confiscated his fruit and vegetable cart in Sidi Bouzeid has quickly spread across the country, with hundreds of thousands being quick to relate to the bitter taste of unemployment and the high cost of living.
Tunisia’s unemployment rate is officially 14 per cent, but the percentage of graduates without work is estimated to be double that figure.
As the protests continued, the discontent took a political turn, with footage circulating on the Internet of angry youths tearing down a banner of the president in a scene previously unimaginable during his 23 years in power.
On Tuesday, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said that it had received the names of 35 people killed in the riots. The death toll has meant dozens of funerals, many of which have sparked further demonstrations and further fuelled public anger.
For its part, the Tunisian government has said that those killed had been armed with petrol bombs and had been attacking public property.
Despite the deployment of the country’s 150,000 police to try to quell the violence, the authorities announced the “indefinite” closure of the country’s schools and universities on Tuesday.
Tunisia’s TAP news agency quoted the Education Ministry as saying the measure was in order to investigate those responsible for inciting students, though trade unionists, human rights activists and lawyers have also joined the demonstrations.
In a televised speech on Monday, Bin Ali blamed the rioting on “gangs of thugs”, accusing those behind the rioting of committing acts of “terrorism”. The Tunisian president also promised to create 300,000 new jobs in an attempt to address the country’s unemployment problem.
Clashes had erupted on Monday in the towns of Kasserine, Thala and Regueb, and according to the French news agency AFP, one union member shot in Sunday’s unrest later died of bullet wounds in hospital in Kasserine, 290 kilometres south of the capital Tunis.
This hospital, under army control, was treating a “great number” of people wounded in the demonstrations, it said.
The international human rights group Amnesty International warned in a statement on Tuesday against more “arbitrary” arrests after Bin Ali’s speech.
There are no available figures on the exact number of arrests made since the riots began because of a media blackout imposed by the Tunisian authorities, but in its statement Amnesty said that if those arrested had been responsible for acts of violence, they must be charged with criminal offences.
“The Tunisian authorities must either press charges against those detained and try them in fair proceedings or release them,” it said.
An unidentified number of bloggers and activists have also been detained. The international journalists group Reporters without Borders has said it had been alerted that six bloggers and activists had been arrested following the riots, or had disappeared.
The crackdown has included cyber activists, whose Facebook and gmail accounts have been hacked, presumably by the Tunisian authorities. Three members of the “Pirate Party”, a local group advocating Internet freedom and fighting censorship, have reportedly been arrested.
With the country currently under a news blackout, much of the information coming from Tunisia has come via the Internet.
For the moment, there are few indicators as to where Tunisia’s rioting is heading. But demonstrations that erupted in the neighbouring country of Algeria last week against surges in food prices were immediately compared to the situation in Tunisia.
In Algeria, too, riots across the country have resulted in the deaths of three and the injury of hundreds of others in clashes with police. The protests were triggered by a rise in the cost of basic food items, including oil, sugar and milk, which the government has now reversed in an attempt to quell the riots.
By Monday, the situation in Algeria appeared to be calmer, but the government is still faced with serious challenges in dealing with the country’s housing crisis, also the reason for the protests.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Arab world, in Jordan the government slashed taxes on fuel and foodstuffs on Tuesday in what was being seen as a pre-emptive move after activists called for nationwide demonstrations on 14 January against price rises and rising inflation rates.
Many observers have seen in the wave of protests a new form of dissent in the Arab world. According to Lamis Andoni, a Jordanian analyst, the protests mark a “rebirth of Arab activism”.
In a comment published on aljazeera.net, Andoni said that the roots of the Tunisian “uprising” lay in a “lethal combination of poverty, unemployment and political repression: three characteristics of most Arab societies.”
In Lebanon’s Assafir newspaper, columnist Satei Noureddin said the events in Tunisia and Algeria could lead to “real change” in the two countries.
He said that the events could also be carved “deeply” in the consciousness of Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian and Sudanese populations also suffering from similar economic and political conditions.
On Tuesday, the Arab Programme for Human Rights Activists issued a statement in solidarity with the demonstrations entitled, “Hunger riots: yesterday Tunisia, today Algeria and Jordan, and the rest yet to come.”