Tunisia unemployment protests escalate with activist’s arrest
Authorities rounded up 10 protesters accused of attacking police stations with Molotov cocktails.
Demonstrations over high unemployment in southern Tunisia continued Monday with police reportedly firing tear gas on protesters pelting rocks in their direction.
Nine years after the uprising that toppled Tunisia’s longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and set off the region’s Arab Spring revolutions, the country is once again gripped by anti-government protests. In the city of Tataouine, where unemployment hovers around 30%, protesters are demanding the government fulfill promises made in June 2017 to create more jobs in the oil and gas sectors.
A three-month-long sit-in that year, during which protesters blockaded two oil and gas pumping stations, ended with the unemployment minister pledging to create thousands of jobs and allocate more than $30 million for a development fund.
The trade union in Tataouine says the government never followed through on its promise, and it has called for a strike among its members.
