Student union at heart of protests rocking Tunisia
Warda Atiq, the secretary-general of
L Union générale des étudiants de Tunisie (UGET), told
University World News that 50 members of UGET have been arrested and 32 remain in pre-trial detention.
The first arrest was of Kais Schneiter, UGET’s representative in the southern region of Medenine, in mid-January, as protests sparked by alleged police brutality, economic woes and COVID-19 lockdowns gathered steam.
UGET activist Ghafran Sfar told
University World News that police “used psychological pressure” against Schneiter, “threatening to beat him and told him that if he did not stop agitating, they would put him in jail without approval from a judge”.
The government ordered a total lockdown on Jan. 14. What should have been a celebration of 10 years of democracy turned into a clampdown under the pretext of COVID-19 sanitary measures. The country exploded in angry revolt with running battles with police in the burning nighttime streets of popular neighborhoods across Tunisia.