TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) – A growing tidal wave of youth unrest, tapping into a source of economic frustration, is engulfing Tunisia and taking its leadership all the way to the top. After all, it is the country that sparked the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions.
A third of the young people in the North African nation are unemployed – and many are angry about their stagnant fortunes. For the fourth consecutive day, they have taken to the streets in violent demonstrations of 11.7 million people across the country – from the capital of Tunis to the cities of Kasserine, Gafsa, Sousse and Monastir.
The protests have sparked a muscular response from authorities who fear a repeat of the protests that led to the ousting of strong President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali 10 years ago. The army is deployed at four hotspots. Here’s a look at what’s going on:
THE PROTEST MOVEMENT OF TUNISIA IS GROWING
Protest groups increasing in size by the day have been active every night since Friday. They organize simultaneous, often violent demonstrations in cities in Tunisia.
The groups have pelted municipal buildings with stones, thrown Molotov cocktails, looted, destroyed and collided with police. The unrest is concentrated in poor, densely populated neighborhoods where trust with the police is already lacking.
The army was called in by the government on Sunday evening to quell tensions and protect the country’s institutions. Police said many hundreds of protesters have been arrested.
WHAT ARE THEY PROTESTING?
The exact causes are unclear, but the stagnant North African country’s poor economic prospects are at the heart of the discontent.
With signs like “Work is a right, not a favor”, protesters are angry at the broken promises of democratically elected President Kaïs Saied and his government, which has failed to bring an economy on the brink of bankruptcy going to reverse.
Ten years after the historic revolution, with the slogan “employment, freedom and dignity”, Tunisians feel they have everything but that. According to the National Institute of Statistics, one third of Tunisian youth are unemployed and one fifth of the country lives below the poverty line.
Young people don’t remember the repression under Ben Ali and want job opportunities. They communicate this common frustration through social media, such as in neighboring Algeria, where a youth-led protest movement forced its longtime leader out of power in 2019.
WHY HAS THE PANDEMIC MADE THINGS WORSE?
Disparate lockdown restrictions and a nighttime curfew since October to stem the spread of COVID-19 have exacerbated tensions.
The pandemic especially affected Tunisia’s main tourism industry, which was once powered by its beautiful historic towns and white sand beaches.
Flights have run aground and potential tourists are blocked at home and have a general reluctance to travel when contagious virus variants race across countries and continents.
HOW DO AUTHORITIES RESPOND?
Amnesty International has implored the Tunisian authorities to exercise restraint in reducing tensions and defending the rights of the many hundreds detained, but the authorities are increasingly relying on the military for help and have used tear gas against protesters.
The Ministry of the Interior has justified the police’s robust response as necessary “to protect the physical integrity of citizens and public and private property”.
Others disagree. Tunisian Forum on Economic and Social Rights Chairman Abderrahman Lahdhili said this approach is “not the most appropriate”, and authorities should instead look at the underlying “deep reasons”. Every year, Lahdhili said, 100,000 students leave school and 12,000 of them go to illegal migration, embarking on overcrowded smugglers in a risky attempt to reach Europe. Others, he said, are falling prey to recruitment by extremist organizations.
ARE ISLAMIST FORCES BEHIND THE PROTESTS?
Saied, the conservative president, tried to address the protesters directly by unexpectedly visiting them Monday evening in the popular M’nihla neighborhood, near Tunis.
He warned protesters against extremist Islamist forces “acting in the shadows” that he claimed are trying to ferment chaos and destabilize the democratically elected government.
It is unclear whether this is simply a way of blaming his government for the unrest, or whether Islamist forces are really behind the movement. Saied himself is an outsider who won with the support of moderate Islamists.
The leader of Tunisia’s influential, Islamic-inspired Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi, has condemned the recent “looting and vandalism”.
___
Read all AP stories explaining news developments at https://apnews.com/hub/Explainer