Tunisia unemployment protests escalate with activist’s arrest

Authorities rounded up 10 protesters accused of attacking police stations with Molotov cocktails.
TOPSHOT - Tunisian protesters clash with security forces as they demonstrate in the southern city of Tataouine on June 22, 2020 demanding authorities make good on a 2017 promise to provide jobs in the gas and oil sector to thousands of unemployed. - Tunisian security forces clashed for a second day with protesters demanding jobs and the release of an activist in Tunisia's marginalised south, after weeks of tensions. The protests come as Tunisia, until now largely spared the worst of the novel coronavirus,
Tunisian protesters clash with security forces as they demonstrate in the southern city of Tataouine on June 22, 2020, demanding authorities make good on a 2017 promise to provide jobs in the gas and oil sector to thousands of unemployed. - FATHI NASRI/AFP via Getty Images
Al Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East
Al-Monitor Staff

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.

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