Police fire tear gas as protests rage against Tunisia’s prime minister

TUNIS, Monday

Police fired tear gas at anti-government protesters throwing stones outside the Tunisian prime minister’s office today at the start of a make-or-break week for the transition leadership.

Tensions spiked after dozens of protesters moved against police lines outside the building in central Tunis and the stand-off continued.

Hundreds had camped out in front the office overnight, calling for the government to resign.

“We will stay here until the government resigns and runs away like (ousted president Zine El Abidine) Ben Ali,” said 22-year-old student Othmene.

The demonstration drew thousands of people when it began on Sunday.

Many of the protesters had made their way to the capital from the impoverished rural parts of Tunisia where the uprising began and held up pictures of victims of Ben Ali’s bloody crackdown in recent weeks.

There was no unrest in the night despite a curfew and a state of emergency that bans any public assemblies in the country, but police fired tear gas after stones were thrown and dozens of protesters charged at police lines.

Many schools also remained shut despite a government order to re-open after teachers called an “unlimited” strike in protest against the new Cabinet put in place following the end of the authoritarian Ben Ali’s 23-year rule.

“This strike is irresponsible. Our children are being held hostage,” complained Lamia Bouassida, one of dozens of parents who had come to a school in the centre of the capital to see if it was open or not.

The General Union of Tunisian Workers, known under its French acronym as the UGTT, has refused to recognise the new government because it keeps in place key figures from the ousted regime, including Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi.

“We support the demands of the people. The UGTT will never abandon the people in their struggle to demolish the old regime,” Nabil Haouachi, a representative of the teachers’ union within the UGTT, told AFP.

Many Tunisians feel the same way and have kept up daily protests since the government was announced last Monday, calling also for the destruction of Ben Ali’s powerful RCD party, which has dominated Tunisia for decades.

Others say the revolution has gone far enough and it is time for calm.

“We have to make the democratic process real and irreversible and at the same time guard against the violence and anarchy that threaten our country,” Rachid Sfar, a former prime minister, wrote in an editorial in La Presse daily.

Ghannouchi, who has been in place since 1999, has resisted pressure to quit and says he will resign from politics only after the north African state’s first democratic elections since independence from France in 1956.

He said the vote could be held within six months but has not set a date.

The government has meanwhile unveiled unprecedented democratic reforms including allowing full media freedoms, releasing political prisoners and registering political parties that were banned under Ben Ali.

The strongman resigned and fled in disgrace to Saudi Arabia on January 14 under pressure from a wave of social protests that overcame a bloody crackdown in which his security forces killed dozens of people.

The movement against Ben Ali began after a 26-year-old fruit vendor committed suicide.

The United States has urged the embattled prime minister to move quickly to allow democratic freedoms and hold free elections, while governments around the world have said they support the aspirations of the Tunisian people.

The government has sought to re-impose order and start up regular economic activity in the country following weeks of dramatic upheaval.

It announced earlier that schools and universities would begin opening this week after they were shut on January 10 in the final days of Ben Ali’s regime. (AFP)