Tunisian Islamists, Leftists Clash After Job Protests
By REUTERS
Tunisian Islamists, Leftists Clash in Tunis After Job Protests
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian police broke up a clash in Tunis on Tuesday
after pro-government Islamists attacked labour union leaders they blamed
for inciting protests last week against the Islamist government.
Several hundred Islamists with knives and sticks charged a gathering of
the UGTT main labour union body in the capital and broke its office
windows with stones, a Reuters witness said. Police then intervened to
separate the two groups.
"UGTT, you are thieves, you want to destroy the country," the Islamists chanted. They also carried banners.
Hundreds of leftist union members, who backed days of protests over lack
of jobs and development in the deprived town Siliana last week, had
been chanting slogans in the streets by the UGTT headquarters calling
for a general strike and downfall of the government led by the Islamist
Ennahda party.
Ennahda came to power last year after an uprising brought down veteran
ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, whose police state had repressed
Islamists and promoted secularism.
Some 2,000 unionists gathered after the clashes at the government
headquarters in Tunis, demonstrating against Ennahda prime minister
Hamadi Jebali.
"Ennahda will end up like Ben Ali. They have not chosen their enemy
well," said one demonstrator who did not give his name.
Ennahda accused leftists who lost last year's elections of fomenting the
unrest in Siliana by provoking Tunisians in impoverished areas into
confrontations that would drive away foreign investors.
The protests, which led to at least 252 injuries including some cases of
blinding by birdshot, began after a call by the UGTT to take to the
streets to demand jobs, investment and the removal of Ennahda's Islamist
governor of the province.
The government on Saturday temporarily removed the local governor,
promised jobs to victims of the 2010 uprising, and police stopped using
birdshot after criticism of "excessive force" from the U.N. Rights
Commissioner Navi Pillay.
The protests were the fiercest since more conservative Salafi Islamists
attacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis in September over an anti-Islam film
made in California, in violence that left four people dead.
The clashes on Tuesday did not appear to involve Salafis.
"This is a message from Ennahda to stop union activism. It's the same
method used by Ben Ali," said UGTT figure Fethi Debek.
The shift to slogans against the Islamists in Siliana seemed to
wrong-foot the government, which has been absorbed so far with violent
disputes between Salafis and liberals over the future direction of what
was once a bastion of Arab secularism, and securing international
funding to meet budget targets.
The Western-backed government secured international funding last week
for an economy suffering from the financial crisis in the European
Union, Tunisia's main trading partner.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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