Tunisia Puts Two Ben Ali Advisers Under House Arrest as Protests Continue

[Joanne98]

Source: Bloomberg

Tunisia’s interim government placed two advisers of ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali under house arrest as protesters gathered in the capital, Tunis, to call for members of the former regime to be removed from power.

Abdelaziz Ben Dhia and Abdallah Kallel were detained while a third former presidential adviser, Abdelwaheb Abdallah, is still at large, the state-run Agence Tunis Afrique Presse reported, without saying how it obtained the information.

In the week since the Ben Ali regime fell and was replaced by a unity government, lawmakers’ assurances that an era of repression is over have failed to stem demands that members of his ruling party be stripped of their posts in the coalition. Protests have also erupted in other Arab nations including Algeria, Morocco and Yemen, and have included self-immolations and references to the Tunisian revolt.

A crowd of about 1,000 from central Tunisia arrived in Tunis today to demonstrate outside the Interior Ministry, said Zouhaier Maghzaoui, a member of the General Syndicate for Secondary Education.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-23/tunisia-puts-two-ben-ali-advisers-under-house-arrest-as-protests-continue.html

[Robbien]

1. Ben Ali's cabinet members are playing a badly formatted waiting game

Every other day they do something and then turn to the people asking "Is this enough? Can we keep our jobs now?"

First they froze Ben Ali's money
Then they arrested some of Ben Ali's family
Then they added a few token opposition members to the cabinet
Then they dropped out of Ben Ali's party
Then they said they would hold elections in six months
Now they are beating the bushes to find anyone to punish in order to satisfy the public ire.



This three day mourning is also a tacit they are using trying to waste time by distracting the people.

All in hopes of hanging on long enough to outlast the public interest in getting rid of them.

[DCKit]

2. Well stated!

Not that we could have expected anything else, but I like the way you laid it out.