Protesters in Tunisia protest against economic crisis and repression

Thousands of protesters participated this Saturday (17), in Tunis, capital of Tunisia, in the biggest protest in recent years against Kais Saied, who rules the country. They accuse him of undermining democracy and mismanaging the economy, a growing challenge for his government.

The demonstration, led by the country's main trade union federation, the UGTT, and by civil society groups, takes place in the midst of an economic crisis, the deterioration of public services, recurring water and electricity cuts and a shortage of medicines and essential products.

Saied assumed broad powers in 2021 and 2022, dissolving Parliament, dismissing dozens of judges and governing by decree, measures that his opponents called a coup.

Human rights groups say he has intensified repression against civil society, journalists and opposition figures. Saied rejects these accusations, says he is not a dictator and accuses his opponents of fueling social unrest.

Participants called for the release of government critics and demanded an end to what they called attacks on union rights. Some carried signs expressing frustration with unemployment and pollution.

In a rare show of unity, opposition parties from different political persuasions joined lawyers, doctors, journalists, the unemployed and civil society groups in a march along Habib Bourguiba Avenue, one of the main stages of the 2011 protests that helped trigger the Arab Spring uprisings.

The protest represents a significant challenge for Saied, after years of divisions have weakened the opposition's ability to mobilize large crowds.

"Silence will no longer be acceptable. The State cannot be built by concentrating all powers in the hands of a single person," Slah Eddine Salmi, leader of the UGTT, told the protesters. Hundreds of police officers were mobilized across the capital.

Protesters chanted: "No fear, the power belongs to the people" and "the prisons are full, the people are hungry." They also returned to the emblematic motto of the 2011 uprising, which in Tunisia was remarkably peaceful: "The people want the fall of the regime."

"Enough is enough! The country is falling apart. We suffer from power and water cuts, and we face one crisis after another," said Yassine Gharseli, a protester from Sfax, about 250 km south of Tunis. "I came from Sfax to defend my freedom and I do not intend to give up, even if I become the last voice of the country."

In recent weeks, a series of protests led mainly by young people have been putting pressure on governments in different parts of the world, with agendas that combine economic dissatisfaction, precarious public services and criticism of corruption and the lack of political representation.

Recent demonstrations were recorded, among other countries, in India, France, Indonesia, Morocco, Madagascar and Peru, in a wave that has taken to the streets a generation marked by distrust in institutions.

In France, protests that began in schools turned into a national mobilization against the cost of living and the deterioration of public services, while in Tunisia thousands took to the streets this Saturday (17) against the worsening of economic conditions and restrictions on political freedoms.