TUNISI - Nel momento in cui l’interesse internazionale si è spostato verso l’Egitto e i media stranieri hanno lasciato il paese, i manifestanti tunisini che ancora reclamano la dissoluzione dell’RCD (il partito del dittatore) e le dimissioni del primo ministro Mohamed Ghannouchi vengono messi brutalmente a tacere. Malgrado la partenza di Ben Ali e l’annuncio di un nuovo governo di unità nazionale, le milizie dell’RCD continuano a seminare il caos e la polizia ne approfitta per reprimere, lasciandosi dietro decine di arresti, feriti e i primi morti della Tunisia post-rivoluzionaria, come dimostra quanto accaduto nella capitale il 28 e il 29 gennaio scorso.
The "Caravan of freedom"
About five protesters from Sunday, January 23 occupied the Kasbah, where is the seat of prime minister and other ministries. They called the "Caravan of freedom," a march from regions of the Interior (Sidi Bouzid, Gafsa, Kasserine, Thala and Metlaoui), which was the highest number of deaths during the uprising erupted in late December, composed by children, students, unemployed mothers with children in tow. After reaching the capital have camped in the square where the windows of the premier Ghannouchi, arranging the best mattresses and blankets offered by the inhabitants of the city. They brought with them photographs of their martyrs, to commemorate the sacrifice made compartment will remain until the party of former dictator will not be dissolved, to protest against a government and a political system that still retains the fetishes of the old regime. "The donkey party is in Saudi Arabia, but the wagon is still here," was the slogan chanted by the symbolic square. Sit-in organized by the caravan during the week, then joined hundreds of citizens from all over the country. "Just RCD", "Ghannouchi go", the choirs have rebounded to days and days across the city. From the casbah avenue Habib Bourguiba, the heart of the ville nouvelle, scene of daily marches and peaceful demonstrations. At least until Friday, January 29, when the resurgence of violence in Tunis has projected a sharp return to the past. 
The first signs of a recovery of the old system of deterrence had already occurred in the middle of last week, when anti-riot agents have started to fire tear gas on protestors to disperse crowds and truncheon blows. Only a few days ago (Saturday, January 22, note) was the same police to the streets to express his support for the revolution and shake off the gloomy image of "watchdog" of the dictatorship that had earned during the era of Ben Ali. Nothing but a sham, as the new events, to rebuild their virginity in the eyes of revolutionary Tunisia. Two weeks after the fateful January 14, in a country on the brink of chaos, one thing seems clear: Ben Ali is gone, but the brutal methods of his police remain in the service of Prime Minister Ghannouchi and the masterminds behind that are stifling the revolution of jasmine and hopes of an entire people. 
Venerdì 28 gennaio, dopo la presentazione del nuovo esecutivo di “unità nazionale”, l’atteggiamento repressivo del governo nei confronti dei manifestanti si è fatto più esplicito. A pattugliare il centro della capitale, oltre ai militari e ai celerini, sono tornate le milizie dell’RCD, armate di bastoni, spranghe di ferro e coltelli. Alle 18:00 l’avenue Habib Bourghiba sembra un campo di battaglia. Nell’aria l’odore acre del gas lacrimogeno. Le saracinesche dei negozi abbassate e un silenzio pesante, rotto soltanto dal rumore degli elicotteri che sorvolano il viale. Ammassati sulla strada gli ombrelloni divelti e le sedie sfasciate dei café, oltre ai contenitori garbage uprooted, surrounded by trash accumulated in a day so far peaceful. At each corner of the street, groups of police in riot gear are accompanied by armed civilians. Africa stationed in front of the hotel a dozen vans, on which agents are dragging men in handcuffs. 
This is the culmination of a bloody day began a few hours earlier near the casbah, where hundreds of protesters refused to abandon the protest, despite intimidation by the police. "By midafternoon, the militias have penetrated the crowd and began to panic, throwing stones at the cops," refers to the lawyer Mohamed Ali Hichri, witnessed the incident along with other colleagues. "A few minutes before the soldiers present on the square had warned us:" we were ordered to retreat, they're coming to make a riot and massacre ', "says the lawyer. The intervention of the militias has sparked fierce reaction of the police, who cleared the streets of truncheon blows and tear gas. Among the demonstrators and wounded dozens of people ended up in handcuffs, while the militias were able to leave the area undisturbed in the direction of the casbah dell'avenue Habib Bourguiba, where they played the same scenario that recalls all too well the techniques "benaliane" sabotage the legitimacy of dissent and repression. According to the testimony of Ali Hichri, some gentlemen of the Bar, including Ahmed and Said el Haqmi Seddiqi, I note they have personally "that at least two corpses were taken away by police during clashes in the casbah, as stated in a statement delivered by the lawyers at the Justice Ministry. In the same statement the lawyers claim to have seen some agents after surgery, make up boxes of knives in the area of \u200b\u200bthe sit-in "to justify the massacre on the pretext that the protesters were armed." According to other witnesses present at the time of the arrival of troops and response della polizia, i morti sarebbero tre, tra cui una donna anziana soffocata dal gas e dalla calca prodottasi nella piazza. 
I media locali tacciono
Il giorno dopo l’accesso alla casbah è ostruito da un recinto di filo spinato e da squadre di poliziotti che pattugliano i vicoli tortuosi della città vecchia. La piazza è vuota. Dei manifestanti non c’è più traccia. Alcuni hanno lasciato la capitale in modo precipitoso, altri hanno trovato riparo in ricoveri di fortuna, assistiti da dottori e avvocati accorsi volontariamente. La “carovana della libertà” has been wiped out. In Tunisia and the Democratic Revolutionary already seems to prohibit all forms of dissent.
Outside the courthouse, a few steps from the casbah, a final score of demonstrators arrested in recent days has just been released by the court. They got probation, while the defense has asked for an investigation into the violence committed by law enforcement. In their faces are still visible bruises from the blows received. One of them lifts his shirt and shows signs of burns and wounds scattered across the chest. It's called Faisal, has twenty-three and comes from Sidi Bouzid: "Yesterday, after the attack on the militias, the police I have loaded into a van. They said that I would accompany the bus to go home. Instead they beat me and locked in a basement all night. "
While foreign journalists left the country to reach Cairo, Tunis continue the violence and repression. Today (Saturday, January 29, note) the intersection between the Avenue Bourguiba and the Porte de France have reappeared militias, who attacked the procession of Fammes democrates (Association for secularism and equality of rights between men and women) and students high school, under the gaze of an accomplice special units. Local media are silent the incident, too committed themselves to cheer the new government of national unity and to demand the resumption of economic activity. "I refused the invitation of Nessma TV in protest against the report aired by the network in order to discredit the protesters in the casbah and justify the violence committed against them," says on his Facebook profile Tunisian journalist and writer Soufiane Ben Farhat . "For two weeks there is nothing to talk about press freedom and freedom of information, but apparently, in this second post-revolutionary republic, television and newspapers have only changed master", is the bitter comment of the lawyer Ali Hichri . 
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