Tunisia yesterday lifted a night-time curfew, two weeks after it was imposed across the country following violent protests against high unemployment.
The Interior Ministry said the curfew would be lifted across the country starting from yesterday, citing an “improvement in security conditions,” Tunisia’s official news agency reported.
On January 22, the North African country imposed the curfew following attacks on public and private property during the protests, Tunisia’s worst social unrest since the 2011 uprising that deposed longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The protests first erupted in the western central province of Kasserine, and soon spread to other areas including the capital, Tunis.
In Kasserine, an unemployed youth reportedly suffered a deadly electric shock when he climbed a power pole in protest over a rejected job application.
His death was reminiscent of the December 17, 2010, self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi that sparked anti-government protests across Tunisia, which then spread across North Africa and the Middle East.
Tunisia is widely seen as the sole democratic success story of the 2010-11 Arab Spring uprisings.
However, the country has been in the grip of an economic slowdown resulting from the unrest that followed Ben Ali’s overthrow.
Tunisia is also struggling to control a militant insurgency.