TUNIS —
Tunisian police on Monday arrested
the mayor of a town where a fruit seller committed suicide after his scales
were seized by council officials, sparking protests, a judicial spokesman said.
اضافة اعلان
Mohamed Amine Dridi, 25, hanged himself on Saturday
two days after the electronic scales he used on his fruit and vegetable stall
were taken, Tunisian media reported.
On Sunday night, protesters in his hometown of Mornag,
south of the capital Tunis, took to the streets criticizing high rates of
unemployment and soaring costs of living.
They torched tires and blocked the main street in
Mornag, while police fired tear gas to disperse them.
Dridi’s suicide echoes the death of fruit seller
Mohamed Bouazizi, a university graduate who set himself on fire in 2010 in the
town of Sidi Bouzid to protest police harassment and unemployment.
Bouazizi’s death
triggered weeks of mass protests against unemployment, high living costs, nepotism,
and state repression, and Sidi Bouzid became the birthplace of Tunisia’s
revolution that eventually toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
On Monday, Mornag’s mayor was taken into police
custody as part of an investigation into the suicide, a judicial spokesman for
the Ben Arous governorate said.
Tunisia’s interior ministry said Dridi had faced
“serious family problems”, claims his brother rejected in an interview on local
radio on Monday.
The protests come amid brewing social discontent in
the North African country of 12 million people, the torchbearer of the
pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings that rocked the region in 2011.
Tunisia is facing a serious economic crisis with
regular shortages of basic foodstuffs and high inflation.
Since President
Kais Saied staged a power grab in
July 2021, opposition parties and civil society activists have accused the
security services of resorting to methods reminiscent of those of the former
dictatorship of Ben Ali.
Overnight Sunday, another demonstration against living
conditions took place in the working class Tunis suburb of Douar Hicher, media
reported.
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