TUNISIA: Students return to school following kidnap rumours

Record ID: 352474

  • Title: TUNISIA: Students return to school following kidnap rumours
  • Date: 3rd February 2011
  • Summary: TUNIS, TUNISIA (FEBRUARY 2, 2011) (REUTERS) STUDENTS GOING TO SCHOOL SIGN READING SCHOOL NAME 'LYCEE PILOTE DE L'ARIANA' VARIOUS OF STUDENTS INSIDE THE SCHOOL (SOUNDBITE) (French) STUDENT OF LYCEE PILOTE DE L'ARIANA, SARRA, SAYING: "Nothing is happening, it was just minor problems because of everything that is happening in this country at the moment. There were no mi
  • Embargoed: 18th February 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Tunisia, Tunisia
  • Country: Tunisia
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA28GARHV55NL8RODV2GBKSLIV8
  • Story Text: Schools returned to normal in Tunis on Wednesday (February 2) a day of lawlessness and rumours of kidnappings spread fear throughout the Tunisian capital.
    Students at the Lycee Pilote De L'Ariana returned to school despite reports of armed gangs terrorising schools across Tunis, after schools countered the rumours and said life was normal.
    "Nothing is happening," said Sarra, a student at the school.
    "It was just minor problems because of everything that is happening in this country at the moment. There were no militia, there were no kidnappings, there was no rape, it was just the headmaster of our school who spread rumours to the media," she added.
    Sahbi Bouguerra, a philosophy teacher at the school, said people needed to defy security concerns to allow a return to normal life.
    "Our return to school today proves that for us the revolution was successful but security should start from us. Its (the revolution's) true success will be when we return to our schools. So we call on all people to return to their work to create confidence in themselves and in security. All these groups everywhere have only one goal and that is to return to chaos again. Our return now and our awareness will make sure nothing will happen," he said.
    One student, Reem Salam, described the panic that engulfed the school on Tuesday (February 1) when false rumours spread like wildfire.
    "We sat in the classroom to study, and we got a message that the school was on fire, that armed gangs were coming to beat us up, and then they said gangs had kidnapped people in Khayr el-Deen (another school). So students were walking around the school with sticks. They told us to go home and not to return in the afternoon. We left and saw horrified parents coming because they sent them a message that the school was on fire. We left the school but we didn't see anything, everything was normal and I walked home and it was quiet," she said/ Tunisia's interim interior minister, Farhat Rajhi, told Tunisian television on Tuesday some members of the country's security forces are conspiring to undermine state security.
    Rajhi said he replaced 34 senior security officials, a first step to overhauling the network of police, security forces and spies built up by former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali over two decades.
    Among those replaced were the head of national security, the head of general security and the head of presidential security, key positions under the old Ben Ali regime.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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