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November 18, 2005
Report: Riot Police Surround Protestors in Downtown Tunis
UPDATE: The protest ended without incident; everyone is okay. -andy, 1:35pm
Breaking news from Tunis.... Word has reached civil society members here at WSIS that a group of protesters in downtown Tunis have been surrounded by riot police within the last hour. The protesters were apparently leaving the headquarters of a group of Tunisian hunger strikers when the incident began.
I spoke with a representative from AMARC, the World Association of Community Radio, who has been in contact with people on the scene with the protestors. Please note that all of this information is coming to me second hand, so I cannot confirm the exact details of what is going on, but here is what I was told.
"[Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Shirin Ebadi had called on them yesterday, pleading with them to end their hunger strike - that they were needed in the struggle. So they were to announce a decision this morning, and there was to be a press conference this morning."
"We hadn't heard anything more until half an hour ago [approximately 12:15pm local time]," they continued. "We were told that - our colleagues that are covering it had called - and that the people were moving out of [hunger strike] headquarters onto the street and onto [Avenue] Bourghiba, and that they were surrounded by riot police. And we are trying to get more information from them - it was very noisy and it was very difficult to hear when they called here. So we have other people who are trying to find out what was going on."
I'll post an update if I can get more information. Stay tuned... -andy
Posted by acarvin at November 18, 2005 1:04 PM
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