Sat, March 4, 2023
More than 3,000 people demonstrated against Tunisia's government on Saturday at a rally organised by the powerful UGTT trade union, which called on President Kaid Saied to accept "dialogue".
Saied has pushed through sweeping changes to the political system in the sole democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings, concentrating near-total power in his office since he froze parliament and sacked the government in July 2021.
In the biggest crackdown since the president's power grab, police have arrested around 20 prominent political figures over the past two weeks, primarily Saied's opponents.
"Freedom, freedom, down with the police state," demonstrators chanted as they marched in Tunis on Saturday, also calling for "a halt to impoverishment" in the North African country.
UGTT chief Noureddine Taboubi accused the president of targeting the powerful union as part of a wider crackdown against critics.
Taboubi condemned the latest wave of arrests and the imprisonment since February of Anis Kaabi, a top UGTT official for highway workers, who had been detained after a strike by toll barrier employees.
"We will never accept such arrests," Taboubi told the protesters.
The UGTT has around one million members and shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 with three other civil society groups for promoting national dialogue in the country of about 12 million inhabitants.
AFP journalists said that more than 3,000 people took part in the rally.
Taboubi called on Saied to embrace "dialogue" and "democratic" ways, slamming the president for pursuing a "violent discourse... that is dividing the country".
The UGTT chief also defended "the rights of migrants, regardless of their nationality or the colour of their skin".
"Tunisia is a country of tolerance, no to racism," he told the crowd.
Saied last month ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic make-up".
The rally on Saturday came as some 300 West African migrants in Tunisia prepared to be repatriated, fearful of a wave of violence since Saied's comments.
Taboubi also criticised negotiations between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Tunisia, which is struggling under crippling inflation and debt worth around 80 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Tunisia is seeking a bailout package worth nearly $2 billion from the IMF, which conditions any aid on a series of reforms.
Taboubi said the UGTT is unaware of the "details of the proposals" made by the Tunisian authorities but stressed that the union is totally opposed to any lifting of government subsidies on basic goods such as foodstuff and fuel.
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Tunisian union holds biggest protest yet against president
Credit: REUTERS/ZOUBEIR SOUISSI
March 04, 2023 —
Written by Tarek Amara for Reuters ->
TUNIS, March 4 (Reuters) - Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union rallied in the capital on Saturday in what appeared to be the biggest protest yet against President Kais Saied, staging a show of strength after his recent crackdown on opponents.
Many thousands of protesters filled Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main street in central Tunis, holding banners that read "No to one-man rule" and chanting "Freedom! End the police state".
They were marching after weeks of arrests targeting prominent opponents of Saied, who has staged his first major crackdown since he seized wide-ranging powers in 2021, shutting down parliament and moving to rule by decree.
"We will continue to defend freedoms and rights, whatever the cost. We do not fear prisons or arrests," UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi told the crowd.
"I salute the jurists and politicians in Mornaguia prison," he added, referring to recent detainees.
Hamma Hammami, head of the Workers Party, said protests were the answer to what he called Saied's "creeping dictatorship". "He wants to spread fear but we are not afraid," he said.
The crackdown is the biggest since Saied's seizure of powers and his opponents say it is increasingly clear that he has dismantled the democracy won in the 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring and will end the freedoms it brought.
Saied has denied his actions were a coup, saying they were legal and necessary to save Tunisia from chaos.
CRACKDOWN
The UGTT was initially slow to criticise Saied while political parties accused him of staging a coup, but as the president consolidated his grip while ignoring the union and other players, it began to openly challenge him.
A senior union official was detained last month for organising a strike by highway tollbooth operators, prompting the UGTT's newspaper to accuse Saied of declaring war on the organisation and its million members.
This week authorities barred foreign labour union leaders from entering Tunisia to take part in the rally in solidarity with the UGTT, and Saied said he would not accept foreigners joining protests.
The size of Saturday's rally underscored that the union remains a powerful adversary that Saied may struggle to bat aside as he moves to sideline other opponents in the wake of a parliamentary election that had very low support.
With Tunisia's economy in crisis, state finances on the brink of bankruptcy and shortages of key goods, the potential for public anger may grow.
Over recent weeks police have detained more than a dozen prominent opposition figures, mostly tied to the coalition of parties and protesters that is planning to rally on Sunday, accusing them of conspiring against state security.
Those arrested include politicians from the Islamist Ennahda, which was the biggest party in the shuttered parliament, leaders of a protest group, the head of Tunisia's main independent media outlet and a prominent businessman.
"Saied is threatening everyone here. Parties, civil society, unions. All freedoms ... Tunisians are here to say we cannot accept populism and nascent dictatorship," said Najeh Zidi, a teacher at the protest
(Reporting by Tarek Amara, writing by Angus McDowall, editing by Giles Elgood)
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