Five injured in new Tunisia clashes as police demolish demo camp

Fri, 28 Jan 2011

Tunis - Police in Tunisia Friday clashed with a few hundred demonstrators who had been staging a sit-in since Sunday outside the offices of Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, tearing down the camp.

Five people were reported injured after police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters, who had braved a curfew the past five nights to demand the government's dissolution, medical sources said.

One of the injured was hit by a tear gas canister in the head, the sources said.

Dozens of police then moved in to tear down the protesters' camp.

Witnesses said the police response was the heaviest yet against the youths, who have been protesting the inclusion in the country's new unity government of allies of ousted leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

After being chased from the area surrounding government buildings, the protesters, who converged on Tunis last weekend from around the country, regrouped on the city's main avenue, Habib Bourguiba.

Hundreds of residents of the capital took to the streets in solidarity with the protesters and also joined in the clashes with police.

In the central city of Sidi Bouzid, hometown of some of the protesters and home of this month's Jasmine Revolution, thousands of people staged a demonstration, also out of solidarity with the protesters in Tunis, sources there told dpa.

On Thursday evening, Ghannouchi announced a revised new cabinet that had been purged of all but two ministers that served under Ben Ali.

The government of mostly technocrats met with widespread approval in Tunisia, but some of the youths that led opposition to Ben Ali are bent on removing all emblems of his repressive regime.

Ghannouchi himself served as prime minister under Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14 after a month-long popular uprising that cost at least 78 lives.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/364805,police-demolish-demo-camp.html.