Tunisian footballer Nizar Issaoui died this Friday as a result of third-degree burns suffered after blemishing himself last Monday in protest against police abuse, after being accused of terrorism over a neighborhood dispute in the Kairouan region (center).
“Because of a fight with a person who sells bananas for 10 dinars (about three euros) I go to the police station and they question me for terrorism. Terrorism due to a complaint about bananas”, explained the young man in a live video published on social networks seconds before going to the act in front of the Police headquarters.
Issaoui, 35, and a former player of the Union Sportif de Monastir team (first division), was the father of four children and was transferred from the Major Burns Unit in the capital to his hometown, Haffouz, where many neighbors greeted him to say goodbye.
The security forces used tear gas to disperse dozens of residents who demonstrated in front of the police station to denounce the death of Issaoui, forcing businesses in the area to close.
In 2018, the death of another young man in the same circumstances sparked a wave of protests in Kasserine (south) against the degradation of living conditions in one of the most impoverished regions of the country.
Abderrazak Rezgui, a 32-year-old cameraman who worked for a private television channel, set himself on fire live on social media to denounce the marginalization and abandonment of unemployed youth.
Rezgui explained that with his action he intended to start a revolution like the one that broke out in 2011 after the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, in the neighboring town of Sidi Bouzid, and that put an end to two decades of dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.