11 detainees released in Sidi Bouzid

A Court of First Instance in Sidi Bouzid released 11 detainees arrested in the protests against clean water shortages. Speaking to Arabstoday, lawyer Khaled Awayniyah representing the detainees said: "We filed requests for releasing a group of young people detained for 15 days on a background of the protests in Sabala city and Al-Souk Al-Jadeed following the recent outage of clean water provisions." Khaled expected the five detainees arrested in nine August protests, in which police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds, to be released tomorrow. In an official comment to Arabstoday on releasing the first group of detainees, Samir Al-Shuffi, a member of the Tunisian General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) executive office said: “This is a promising gesture, and we hope all detainees will be released soon. it is offensive to the revolution to arrest revolutionary youth." Sidi Bouzid featured a general strike and demonstrations calling for the release of those previously arrested. Contrary to expectations the demonstrations did not lead to any clashes with the security and kept their peaceful character despite anti-government slogans being chanted. Samir Al-Shuffi said: “The general strike in Sidi Bouzid succeeded tremendously and the demonstrations saw huge participation from the people”. The workers' union has statistics and documents that prove that the strike was widely successful."