Tunisia: Suicides Spark Unemployment Riots

At Babylon and Beyond, Amro Hassan writes that the recent high-profile suicides of two unemployed men have sparked a series of violent demonstrations in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. Most recently Hussein Nagi Felhi, an unemployed 24-year-old, committed suicide after shouting “no for misery, no for unemployment” during a rally earlier this week. According to Hassan, “The death triggered protests met with tear gas after scores of jobless youths hurled stones at police and set fire to an administrative building in a nearby town.” The Tunisia-based blog Groupe Nawaat has video of and details about the protests in Arabic here.