Tunisia arrests Ben Ali relatives amid new protests

[1]

Tunisian authorities arrested 33 members of toppled leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's family as protesters rallied again on Thursday to demand the rooting out of the dictator's former ruling party.

The arrests were announced on state television, which showed footage of luxury watches, jewellery and credit cards seized in raids on homes of the former first family.

Authorities had opened an investigation against them for plundering the nation's resources, it said.

The mass arrest of Ben Ali's relatives showed how his influence has melted away since he dramatically fled to Saudi Arabia on Friday, following weeks of riots in the North African nation.

The accusations include illegal property acquisitions and currency transfers while those targeted included Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi, her brothers and their children, according to an official source quoted by the broadcaster.

Charges of corruption and revelations of the Ben Ali family's lavish lifestyle helped fuel the anger of the protests against his 23-year rule which culminated in his toppling.

About 1,000 people protested in the city centre against Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) in a new wave of anger about the presence of RCD stalwarts in the transitional government unveiled Monday.

And as the new cabinet prepared for its first meeting of the post-Ben Ali era later Thursday, a minister from the RCD, Zouheir M'dhaffer, announced he had pulled out of the government.

M'dhaffer, who had been administrative development minister, said he resigned "to preserve the supreme interests of the nation and in favour of the democratic transformation of the country."

Four other ministers — three unionists and an opposition leader — pulled out on Tuesday because of the presence of officials from the party of the ex-regime.

Eight new ministers who had been RCD members quit the party earlier Thursday, while the interim President vowed a "total break" with the past.

"The people want the government to be fired," shouted protesters outside the party offices, carrying placards that read "We are not afraid of you any more, traitors" and "RCD Out".

Troops fired warning shots to prevent some protesters from scaling a wall around the party officers.

Every day since 74-year-old Ben Ali fled, huge protests have demanded the outlawing of the RCD which has essentially run Tunisia since independence in 1956.

Thursday's was the first demonstration allowed by security forces to reach the party offices, where army tanks stationed for several days had been removed.

About 100 magistrates and advocates demonstrated separately to demand the "independence of the judiciary" and removal of a magistrate they alleged had served the interests of Ben Ali and his family.

Ahead of Thursday's inaugural meeting of the new Cabinet, interim President Foued Mebazaa hailed "a revolution of dignity and liberty" and paid tribute to the "martyrs" who were shot dead in the attempt to keep a lid on the protests.

The government says 78 people were killed when security forces tried to quell protests that started mid-December, but the United Nations says about 100 died.

Mebazaa said the government's top priority would be to draw up an amnesty law for the release of all political prisoners imprisoned under Ben Ali and he vowed to ensure media freedoms and an independent judiciary.

"Together we can write a new page in the history of our country," he said in a televised address late Wednesday.

The transition government has promised free and fair Presidential and Parliamentary elections within six months but has given no precise dates. Under the North African state's constitution, elections should be held in two months.

The tumultuous events in Tunisia have inspired dissidents across the Arab world and sparked protests in countries including Algeria, Jordan and Egypt.

There has been a spate of suicides across the region in apparent imitation of the self-immolation of a 26-year-old Tunisian graduate, Mohammed Bouazizi, whose lonely protest last month kicked off the movement against Ben Ali.

a