Tunisia imposes nationwide curfew as protests spread

Tunisia imposed a nationwide curfew Friday as
protests that coincided with the Arab Spring
anniversary spread from the nation’s
impoverished heartland to the capital, leading to
looting and property destruction.
The indefinite curfew, announced by the Interior
Ministry and scheduled to take effect at 8 p.m.
local time Friday evening, followed five days of
protests and rioting in several cities over
widespread unemployment.This week’s unrest
underscores the difficulties Tunisia has faced in
addressing basic economic needs since 2011,
when similar protests drove out its longtime
autocratic president and triggered demonstrations
that ousted long-serving leaders across the Middle
East in a movement known as the Arab Spring.
Tunisia been hailed as the movement’s lone
political success story, having established an
inclusive democracy and avoided the violence that
has riven other Arab Spring countries. Egypt, for
instance, is now ruled by the former military chief
Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, whose authoritarian
government is cracking down on its critics and
has warned against protests on this year’s
anniversary of the Arab.
But Tunisia has struggled to revive a stagnating
economy and rising unemployment.
Unemployment has increased to 15%, from 13%
before the revolution, with the rate surging to 30%
among young people.
The latest protests broke out last Sunday after a
young man in the working-class city of Kasserine
killed himself, apparently despondent over being
rejected from a list of jobs at the Education
Ministry.
Police responded to a sit-in at the city council
with tear-gas, prompting demonstrations to grow,
said Rabii Gharsalli, an activist based in the city.
In its haste to quell the unrest, the government of
Prime Minister Habib Essid on Wednesday


announced emergency measures, promising 5,000
new jobs in Kasserine and surrounding towns.
The following day, the minister of finance said
that the announcement had been made in error
and that 5,000 unemployed people would be given
job training instead.
The reversal infuriated residents, according to Mr.
Gharsalli, who said “people felt betrayed.”
The demonstrations spread to neighboring towns
and on Thursday to poor districts in the capital,
Tunis, where they turned violent and destructive,
witnesses and the Interior Ministry said.
One police officer was killed earlier this week in a
car accident while responding to rioting and 20
people have been arrested for violence during
protests, the ministry said.
For many Tunisians, this round of demonstrations
bears a strong resemblance to the 2011 protests,
which erupted near Kasserine. The latest unrest is
also occurring at a sensitive time for President
Beji Caid Essebsi, a career politician who held
prominent positions under successive autocratic
regimes.