{"id":22713,"date":"2016-01-23T01:50:40","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T01:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/tunisia-protests-president-vows-to-end-ordeal-of\/"},"modified":"2016-01-23T01:52:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T01:52:08","slug":"tunisia-protests-president-vows-to-end-ordeal-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/tunisia-protests-president-vows-to-end-ordeal-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisia protests: President vows to end &#8216;ordeal&#8217; of unemployed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Tunisia&#8217;s president says he understands frustration that has led to protests over unemployment, but instability could be exploited by extremists.}<\/p>\n<p>A curfew began on Friday evening after &#8220;attacks against public and private property&#8221;, the interior ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Protests over youth unemployment have spread from the northern region of Kasserine to towns and cities.<\/p>\n<p>In a televised speech, President Beji Caid Essebsi said the country would &#8220;get out of this ordeal&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>How Tunisia is keeping Arab Spring ideals alive<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Arab Spring&#8221; pioneer under threat<\/p>\n<p>In his first address since protests began almost a week ago, Mr Essebsi said on Friday night: &#8220;There is no dignity without work. You can&#8217;t tell someone who has nothing to eat to stay patient.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said there was a risk that the Islamic State group in neighbouring Libya &#8220;finds that the moment is opportune to infiltrate into Tunisia&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Essebsi said on Wednesday that more than 6,000 jobs would be given to people from the town of Kasserine.<\/p>\n<p>The government also promised an investigation into allegations of corruption.<\/p>\n<p>Unemployment has worsened since the 2011 revolution, when President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted. More than a third of young people in Tunisia are without work.<\/p>\n<p>Tunisia&#8217;s uprising was the first of the Arab Spring, and often hailed as the most successful.<\/p>\n<p>But correspondents say the authorities have failed to resolve the problems of social exclusion and poverty, and face a growing jihadist threat.<\/p>\n<p>The curfew, which runs from 20:00 to 05:00 local time (19:00 to 04:00 GMT), was put in place because of the &#8220;danger to the security of the state and it citizens&#8221;, the interior ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Only night-shift workers and people needing urgent medical care are exempt.<br \/>\nThe authorities called for calm after protests descended into vandalism, looting and violence in several areas.<\/p>\n<p>The demonstrations started on Sunday in the central-western town of Kasserine, after a man was electrocuted while protesting over his rejection for a government job.<br \/>\nIn the nearby town of Feriana, a policeman died after his car was overturned on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Ridha Yahyaoui died on Sunday after climbing a utility pole in protest over a public sector job prospect that he was rejected for.<\/p>\n<p>His brother, Mehrez, told the BBC&#8217;s Rana Jawad in Kasserine that the 28-year-old had been fighting for a job for two years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His dream was to work, he didn&#8217;t like taking money from people,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m his brother and when I would try to give him five dinars (\u00a31.70; \u20ac2.50), he would not take it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This government has forgotten us&#8230; [Ridha] climbed a pole to tell them, &#8216;give me my rights&#8217;. He was electrocuted and he died.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Habib Essid, who cut short a visit to Europe to deal with the protests, has said his government has no &#8220;magic wand&#8221; with which to tackle unemployment.<br \/>\nAfter meeting French President Francois Hollande in Paris, Mr Essid was due to return to Tunisia and visit Kasserine on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile the French presidency announced that the country would provide \u20ac1bn (\u00a3767m) $1.1bn) to Tunisia over the next five years as part of an economic support package.<\/p>\n<p>Source:BBC:Tunisia protests:[ President vows to end &#8216;ordeal&#8217; of unemployed->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-35384181]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Tunisia&#8217;s president says he understands frustration that has led to protests over unemployment, but instability could be exploited by extremists.} A curfew began on Friday evening after &#8220;attacks against public and private property&#8221;, the interior ministry said. Protests over youth unemployment have spread from the northern region of Kasserine to towns and cities. In a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071686,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22713.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22713.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22713.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22713.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22713.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22713.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22713"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22713"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}