Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Tunisia’s new interior minister said Tuesday his predecessor had been arrested and accused some members of the Tunisian security forces of conspiring to undermine state security.

A new interim government also met to review Tunisia’s tense security situation as the U.N. said 210 people died in the popular revolt that ousted strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi told privately-owned Hannibal TV that a 2,000-strong group had attacked the Interior Ministry Monday.

Former Interior Minister Rafik Belhaj Kacemalso led the crackdown on the uprising that toppled former President Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali.

“These people who came yesterday to the ministry … are the same people who went out today to scare people,” Rajhi said late Tuesday. “There is a conspiracy against state security and there is a conspiracy in the security forces.”

Rajhi’s comments came after gangs of youths rampaged through schools in Tunis Tuesday, terrorizing students, and a day after gangs marauded through the town of Gassrine, burning government buildings and intimidating residents.

Earlier, the Interior Ministry said it had replaced 34 senior security officials, in a first step to overhauling the vast network of police, security forces and spies built up by Ben Ali over two decades.

Among those replaced were the head of national security, the head of general security and the head of presidential security, key positions under the old regime of Ben Ali. Rajhi said he had sacked the national security chief because he had not followed orders in clearing out protesters camped outside government offices Saturday.

The move comes after the head of a U.N. mission to Tunisia said security forces should be overhauled to stop them from working against the people as they did during the nation’s uprising.

The mission, which arrived in Tunisia on Jan. 27, was able to inspect two jails in Bizerte, northwest of here, and reported that they were now back to normal after they were the scene of disturbances that included inmates’ escapes, fires and bloody clashes, Bacre Ndiaye said. “The Tunisian state was a police state. There were abuses by the security apparatus which must be thoroughly reformed. The security system must work for the people, not against.”

Ndiaye also said that 147 people had been killed since the popular revolt began in mid-December while another 72 had died in the country’s jails.

Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting was the first meeting of Prime Minister Mohammad Ghannouchi’s government since it was reshuffled on Jan. 27.

A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting was focusing on security developments around Tunisia, including disturbances in the central town of Kasserine, where public buildings were ransacked and looted Monday. The source said a lifting of the dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed on Jan. 13 appeared premature as “the situation is not yet stabilized.”

State spokesman Taieb Baccouche announced Tunisia would endorse four major human-rights protocols, including the Rome statute which created the International Criminal Court.

Ghannouchi “has approved Tunisia’s adhesion to several important international conventions,” said Baccouche, who is also education minister.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of people rallied in Kasserine to press authorities to end the wave of violence and punish hooligans who looted public buildings Monday, residents said.

Meanwhile, Labor activists in Tunisia Tuesday created the country’s second trade union since independence, official news agency TAP said.

The Tunisian General Confederation of Labor was founded in Tunis and will be headed by Habib Guiza, a former regional secretary with the country’s Tunisian General Union of Labor, which played a key role in the mass protests.” TAP reported. – Agencies