Kasserine, TUNISIA: Tunisian security forces on Tuesday fired tear gas at protesters in the western city of Kasserine following the funeral of a journalist who had set himself on fire over harsh living conditions.
Abdel Razaq Zorgi, a 32-year-old journalist, died late Monday.
His death sparked protests in the city after dark and clashes overnight with police who fired tear gas at dozens of people who had set tyres ablaze and blocked the main street.
Six members of the security forces were injured and nine protesters were detained, interior ministry spokesperson Sofiane Al-Zaq said Tuesday.
After a brief morning calm, protesters were back on the streets of Kasserine in the afternoon after Zorgi's funeral.
They clashed with police outside the governor's office, an AFP correspondent said.
Police again fired tear gas at the protesters to disperse them.
Authorities also deployed reinforcements on the main streets of Kasserine, 270 kilometres (165 miles) from the capital Tunis.
"For the sons of Kasserine who have no means of subsistence, today I start a revolution. I am going to set myself on fire," Zorgi said in a video published before his death.
Both the interior ministry and the National Union of Tunisian Journalists confirmed his death.
The union said he died protesting "difficult social conditions... and a lack of hope", and that it was considering organising a general strike in the media sector.
It was the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia in late 2010 in protest at police harassment that sparked Tunisia's revolution and the Arab Spring uprisings across the rest of the region the next year.
Kasserine was one of the first cities to rise up after the vendor's death, in protests that saw police kill demonstrators.
The unrest quickly spread across the country and led to the overthrow of long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Despite the country's democratic transition after Ben Ali's ouster and a recent return to economic growth, authorities are still struggling to improve poor living conditions.
Inflation fuelled by the devaluation of the Tunisian dinar and persistent unemployment sparked protests across the country last January.
Tunisians clash with police after journalist sets himself ablaze
Tunisians clash with police after journalist sets himself ablaze
- Suicide led to clashes with police in the region
- Another protest planned in the capital
Thousands of Libyans gather for the funeral of Qaddafi’s son who was shot and killed this week
- As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif Al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him
- Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details
BANI WALID, Libya: Thousands converged on Friday in northwestern Libya for the funeral of Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi, the son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was killed earlier this week when four masked assailants stormed into his home and fatally shot him.
Mourners carried his coffin in the town of Bani Walid, 146 kilometers (91 miles) southeast of the capital, Tripoli, as well as large photographs of both Seif Al-Islam, who was known mostly by his first name, and his father.
The crowd also waved plain green flags, Libya’s official flag from 1977 to 2011 under Qaddafi, who ruled the country for more than 40 years before being toppled in a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011. Qaddafi was killed later that year in his hometown of Sirte as fighting in Libya escalated into a full-blown civil war.
As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif Al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him.
Attackers at his home
Seif Al-Islam, 53, was killed on Tuesday inside his home in the town of Zintan, 136 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of the capital, Tripoli, according to Libyan’s chief prosecutor’s office.
Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details. Seif Al-Islam’s political team later released a statement saying “four masked men” had stormed his house and killed him in a “cowardly and treacherous assassination,” after disabling security cameras.
Seif Al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan late in 2011 while trying to flee to neighboring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017, after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty.
“The pain of loss weighs heavily on my heart, and it intensifies because I can’t bid him farewell from within my homeland — a pain that words can’t ease,” Seif Al-Islam’s brother Mohamed Qaddafi, who lives in exile outside Libya though his current whereabouts are unknown, wrote on Facebook on Friday.
“But my solace lies in the fact that the loyal sons of the nation are fulfilling their duty and will give him a farewell befitting his stature,” the brother wrote.
Since the uprising that toppled Qaddafi, Libya plunged into chaos during which the oil-rich North African country split, with rival administrations now in the east and west, backed by various armed groups and foreign governments.
Qaddafi’s heir-apparent
Seif Al-Islam was Qaddafi’s second-born son and was seen as the reformist face of the Qaddafi regime — someone with diplomatic outreach who had worked to improve Libya’s relations with Western countries up until the 2011 uprising.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Seif Al-Islam that included a travel ban and an assets freeze for his inflammatory public statements encouraging violence against anti-Qaddafi protesters during the 2011 uprising. The International Criminal Court later charged him with crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising.
In July 2021, Seif Al-Islam told the New York Times that he’s considering returning to Libya’s political scene after a decade of absence during which he observed Middle East politics and reportedly reorganized his father’s political supporters.
He condemned the country’s new leaders. “There’s no life here. Go to the gas station — there’s no diesel,″ Seif Al-Islam told the Times.
In November 2021, he announced his candidacy in the country’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outcry from anti-Qaddafi political forces in western and eastern Libya.
The country’s High National Elections Committee disqualified him, but the election wasn’t held over disputes between rival administrations and armed groups.
