• A reporter posts a video on Facebook before setting himself on fire.

    Riots in Kasserine in Tunisia

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25 December 2018 New clashes broke out today in Tunisia between police and demonstrators in Kasserine, shortly after the burial of the journalist Abderrazek Rezgui, 32, who self-immolated himself by setting himself on fire yesterday afternoon to protest the serious economic situation in the region.



According to an AFP correspondent on the spot, Tunisian law enforcement agencies used tear gas to disperse dozens of demonstrators and clashes broke out especially in front of the headquarters of the governorate of Kasserine, where a massive security device had been deployed.



"For the children of Kasserine who have no means of subsistence, today, I will start a revolution, I will immolate myself by setting myself on fire", explained the reporter in a video posted on Facebook before self-immolating.



The drama aroused the anger of the inhabitants of Kasserine: in the night between Monday and Tuesday dozens of them burned tires and blocked the main street of the center and the police responded with tear gas. Interior Ministry spokesman Sofiane al-Zaq reported that six officers were slightly injured and nine people were arrested on Monday evening.





The extreme denunciation of the journalist

Abderrazek Rezgui, 32, a Tunisian journalist of a private television in the Kasserine region, Telvza tv. He self-immolated to protest the unemployment and the serious economic situation of this internal region of Tunisia, which was among the first to rise up against the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the revolution of 2010-2011 but which remains among the most poor of the country.



On Facebook the video with the announcement: "I will make the revolution"

And to explain the reasons for his gesture, the reporter published a video on Facebook shortly before: "Today I will make a revolution by myself, I will immolate myself, and if this will allow an unemployed person to find work so much the better. [...] We have been waiting for eight years. Stop. There are regions where people are alive but dead inside. [...] In 20 minutes I will immolate myself, maybe after this the State he will take care of Kasserine a little. Here people are starving, they have nothing to eat. Aren't we human? ".



The death announced

Abderrazek Rezgui did not survive the burns: after setting himself on fire on December 24 afternoon in the square of the Martyrs, in the center of Kasserine, he was transported to the hospital, where he died in the evening.




The people of Kasserine respond

In the night between Monday and Tuesday, many young people took to the streets to protest and tensions erupted: on the main street of the center of Kasserine some demonstrators burned tires and the police used tear gas to disperse them. The toll, reported by the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, is nine arrests and six officers slightly injured.



Journalists' union picks up the protest

The Tunisian National Union of Journalists (SNJT) took a stand saying that the reporter took his own life to protest against "the difficult social conditions, a closed horizon and the lack of hope" affecting the region by Kasserine.



Strike on January 14, symbolic date

The president of the union Nieji Bghouri, meanwhile, announced to the microphones of Radio Mosaique the possibility of decreeing a general strike of the press and media for next January 14. This is a very symbolic date: on January 14, 2011, dictator Ben Ali fled Tunisia after 23 years in power, following the popular uprising defined by the Tunisians as the 'Revolution of dignity' and renamed by the West as the 'Jasmine Revolution'.



A historically difficult region

The strike is intended to be a protest against job insecurity in the journalist sector. In the Kasserine region, close to the border with Algeria, unemployment is very high compared to the national average and many young people are unemployed, including university graduates. The inland areas of Tunisia were the first to rise up against the Ben Ali regime, even before the revolt that led to the ousting of the dictator.



Eight years after the jasmine revolution, the socio-economic situation in Tunisia, especially in marginalized areas, continues to be difficult, with youth unemployment peaking at 30%. 



The precedent of 2010

In the revolution of 2010-2011 the fuse was a self-immolation in a region of the interior, that of Sidi Bouzid: it was there that on December 17, 2010 the street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, giving the off to the so-called Arab Spring.



The fuse of the Jasmine Revolution

After Bouazizi's death, protests broke out in Sidi Bouzid, but among the first governorates in which they extended there was precisely that of Kasserine, protagonist of the bloody weekend of repression of 8-9 January 2011 in which dozens of martyrs of the revolution were killed.