SALON

Sunday, Dec 2, 2012 5:45 PM UTC

Union calls off strike in restive Tunisian town

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Union calls off strike in restive Tunisian townTunisian protesters clash with riot police, unseen, in Siliana, Tunisia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012. The army moved into a southwestern Tunisian town, an official and witnesses said Friday, the fourth day of protests that have injured more than 300 people. President Moncef Marzouki said on television that the North African country's government has not "met the expectations of the people" and asked that a new one, smaller and specialized to deal with the unrest, be formed. The current government has about 80 members. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)(Credit: AP)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A Tunisian labor union on Sunday suspended a nearly weeklong strike in an impoverished central town after the national government agreed to remove a local governor.

Over 300 people had been injured in clashes with police this week in Siliana, 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Tunis.

The Regional Workers Union called a strike last week to protest the area’s economic problems, its lack of government investment and the imprisonment without trial of 14 activists for the last year and a half.

The strike degenerated into daily clashes between stone-throwing youths and police, who responded with tear gas and buckshot.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission criticized police for using excessive force and the ministry of health announced Saturday that two civilians had lost an eye from the buckshot.

Before hundreds of supporters in Siliana, union official Ahmed Chafei announced the “provisional suspension” of the strike to “test the seriousness of the promises made by the government.”

“The governor will never again set foot in Siliana, he has truly left and if he returns we will restart the strike,” he told the cheering crowd.

Unrest in the poor regions outside Tunis has particular resonance, for it was there that a young man selling vegetables burned himself to death, setting off protests that toppled Tunisia’s longtime dictator in January 2011. That in turn set off what is now known as the Arab Spring revolutions.

Since then, however, Tunisia’s economy has struggled, especially with the economic crisis in Europe, its largest trading partner. High unemployment and low investment continue to plague interior regions.

More By Bouazza Ben Bouazza.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations