Monday, February 21, 2011

Tens of thousands of people defied security forces Sunday to rally in the Tunisian capital calling for a new interim government.
It was the second straight day of mass protests in the North African country’s main city, in defiance of a government ban on rallies, after a lull following the popular uprising last month which overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

As many as 40,000 marchers gathered in front of the prime minister’s building in Downtown Tunis shouting slogans such as “Leave!” and “We don’t want the friends of Ben Ali!” Others were demanding pay rises.

Security forces fired several times in the air, while two military helicopters circled over the rally, a Reuters reporter said. The protesters remained in place and there was no sign that anyone had been wounded.
Many waved Tunisian flags and banners proclaiming: “Resignation of the prime minister, Constituent Assembly, Parliamentary System” or “Tunisia is ours and not to others. No to French interference.”

One demonstrator climbed atop a lamp post and urged the crowd to chant: “The people want to bring the government down.”
Hundreds of Tunisians had marched Saturday to demand a secular state following the murder of a Polish priest, verbal attacks on Jews and an attempt by Islamists to set fire to a brothel.

“We are against [Prime Minister Mohammad] Ghannouchi’s government because our revolution has led to nothing with Ghannouchi, this is Ben Ali’s team and it has changed nothing,” teacher Samia Mahfoudh, 50, said at Sunday’s rally. “It’s a bluff.”
“They’re all liars,” said a protester who identified himself only as Mokthar. “There’s no security. There’s nothing but words,” he said, adding that he had no job.

“They are taking us for fools. All the members of the government and the regional councils have been elected by the former regime, the Constitution has been reformed by the former regime. The RCD wants to sow terror,” said another protestor, Sami Ben Moumen, referring to the officially suspended former ruling party.

Tunisian authorities have appointed a panel to prepare free elections due in six months while a number of opposition parties have demanded the election of a constituent assembly to write a new Constitution.
Demonstrators gathered Saturday in the main Avenue Bourguiba in Tunis waving placards reading “Secularism = Freedom and Tolerance” and “Stop Extremist Acts.”

The murder of 34-year-old priest Marek Rybinski, found dead Friday with his throat slit in the garage of a private religious school at Manouba near the capital, was the first of a foreigner or priest since Ben Ali was toppled.
The priest’s body was found as hundreds of Islamists rallied in Tunis Friday calling for the closure of brothels in the city. A march on a street housing one of the best-known brothels was thwarted by police. The Tunisian government and the Islamist Ennahda party both denounced the priest’s slaying.

The Interior Ministry said Saturday the killing appeared to be the work of a “group of extremist terrorist fascists,” judging by the way it was carried out, and vowed that those responsible for the “odious crime” would be severely punished.

In an unrelated development, Tunisian police arrested 40 youths in the coastal town of Gabes trying to sail to Italy, part of efforts to stem a wave of illegal migration since the overthrow of Ben Ali’s ouster, a security source told Reuters Sunday. – Agencies