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Tunisia Sets Nationwide Curfew Amid Growing Unrest Tunisia Sets Nationwide Curfew Amid Growing Unrest
(about 5 hours later)
KASSERINE, Tunisia — Tunisia has imposed a nationwide curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. in response to growing unrest, the authorities said on Friday, as protests over unemployment across the country turned violent in some cities. TUNIS — The Tunisian government imposed a nationwide curfew on Friday after protests against unemployment spread across the country and grew more violent, in an echo of the Arab Spring uprising five years ago.
The day after police stations came under attack and security officers used tear gas to repel protesters armed with stones and firebombs, the Interior Ministry said the curfew was necessary because attacks on public and private property “represent a danger to the country and its citizens.” The Interior Ministry announced the measure — a curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. — on its Facebook page, warning of “danger to the security of the state and it citizens.” A spokesman said violent jihadist groups could take advantage of the chaos created by the protests to cause more violence.
On the outskirts of the capital, Tunis, roving groups of young people pillaged a bank and looted stores and warehouses. Demonstrations have been growing all week, after an unemployed young man died on Saturday in the western town of Kasserine. The man, Ridha Yahyaoui, 28, was electrocuted when he climbed a telephone pole in protest after seeing that his name was not included on a list of new public sector jobs, his father told a local radio station.
Prime Minister Habib Essid cut short a visit to France to try to deal with the protests, which were incited when a young man who lost out on a government job climbed a transmission tower in protest and was electrocuted on Sunday. His desperate act came almost exactly five years after the uprising that toppled President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. That revolt was set off by the suicide of an impoverished young man, a fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi, in the town of Sidi Bouzid, who set himself on fire after the police ordered him to remove his street stall.
Unemployment in Tunisia is around 15 percent. The rate for young people is double that. Mr. Bouazizi’s death became a symbol of popular frustration that many say has not eased in the five years since. Unemployment stands at 30 percent among young people; the interior of the country remains underdeveloped and its population marginalized.
“Are we not Tunisians, too?” Leila Omri, the mother of an unemployed graduate in Kasserine, said. “It’s been four years I’ve been struggling. We’re not asking for much, but we’re fighting for our youth. We’ve struggled so much for them.” Kasserine, a poor agricultural town that was one of the centers of protest in 2011, has led the latest wave of demonstrations. Protesters are demanding jobs and economic development, saying successive governments have failed to deliver them since the revolution.
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 a violent year for the country. The daily protests turned violent as young people threw stones at the police, and security forces dispersed the crowds with tear gas and water cannon.
That bombing, as well as deadly attacks earlier in the year at the Bardo museum in Tunis and in the tourist beach town of Sousse, were claimed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. On Wednesday a police officer died and several others were injured in an accident when their vehicle rolled over in Kasserine.
The suicide five years ago of another unemployed youth set off a popular uprising that overthrew Tunisia’s longtime ruler and eventually gave rise to the Arab Spring uprisings across North Africa. Protests spread across the country by Thursday night, as protesters blocked roads with burning tires, and smashed and looted stores and government buildings. Tunisian news outlets reported that protesters attacked the governor’s office in the town of Jendouba in the northwest and that a customs building was burned in the holy city Kairouan.
In an interview in Paris before the curfew was announced, Mr. Essid rejected any comparison between the two deaths. Police stations were attacked and seven security vehicles were burned on Thursday, said Walid Lougini, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. He also warned that threats on social media from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the most prominent jihadist group in the region, proposed taking advantage of the unrest.
“Tunisia has completely changed from a dictatorship to a young democracy. You know during youth there are periods of adolescence that you have to get through,” he told the television channel France 24. “We have a difficult job, and we are aware of the difficulty.” In the sprawling working class neighborhood of Ettadhamen in the capital, a bank and an electronics store were looted and a vehicle was set alight on Thursday night.
Tourism, the main driver of Tunisia’s economy, plummeted after the attacks last year, leaving even the relatively prosperous coastal areas struggling. Members of the National Guard in armored vehicles stood watch at either end of the main thoroughfare by midafternoon on Friday, flanked by half a dozen riot police vans.
Crowds of young people milled in the streets as residents inspected the damage. Few voiced support for the looting, but they warned that people were cracking under economic hardship and unemployment.
“What happened here was mostly stealing,” said Moez Hlel, 28, who works as a cook. He said he saw looters carrying off a refrigerator the night before. “But in other places people are poor, they do not have enough to eat.”
“People are fed up, they cannot take it anymore,” he said, grasping his throat in a choking gesture.
“From the top to the bottom the officials are corrupt,” he said.