Tunisian man dies after protest

2011-01-05 14:52

Paris - A young man died from setting himself on fire last month in a protest that has sparked widespread social unrest in Tunisia, a French human rights group said on Wednesday.

Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old graduate, doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on December 17 in Sidi Bouzid, central Tunisia, in a protest against unemployment that sparked days of rioting by jobless young people.

The leader of the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), Souhayr Belhassen, told AFP that Bouazizi died on Tuesday evening.

"An investigation or a national commission is needed to determine the causes and the solutions of this social protest which has taken a tragic form," she said.

Another Paris-based rights group, CRLDHT, said in a statement that Bouazizi died at a hospital in Ban Arous near Tunis.

He was forced to sell fruit and vegetables on the streets to make ends meet but police confiscated his produce because he did not have a proper permit, prompting his suicidal protest which sparked a wave of violent riots.

Thousands of people took to the streets on December 24, the worst day of rioting, where they burned the local headquarters of the National Guard, who responded with gunshots that killed an 18-year-old protestor.

Unions and rights groups in Tunisia say the protests were driven by high unemployment and high prices of raw materials.

Tunisia's unemployment rate is officially 14%, but the percentage of graduates without work is about double that, and has prompted a warning from the International Monetary Fund.

- AFP