OST Digital Report – َApril 2025

 
April 2025
The tempo of protest picks up again …between union and civil rights demands

The number of protests doubled during April 2025, expressing widespread popular anger and discontent. The month saw an increase in the level of demands linked to economic and social rights, as well as demands linked to human rights and the right to freedom of expression and a fair trial. As predicted by the Tunisian Social Observatory of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, the pace of protests during April increased to 422 protest actions, compared to just 217 actions during the previous month of March 2025.
The month of April was dominated by demands linked to professional and labor rights, 45% of which related to the regulation of professional status, the right to work, the right to pay overdue wages, the violation of workers’ rights, the improvement of working conditions, arbitrary dismissal, the implementation of outstanding agreements and the delimitation of “traditional” outstanding professional files, such as the file on site workers over 45 years of age, the files on teachers and substitute teachers, and the file on employees of associations working with disabled people.
Alongside what’s been happening in the social sphere, the Tunisian street has seen a resurgence in the civil, political and human rights movement, which accounted for 28.44% of the total number of movements observed during April 2025. This movement was mainly linked to demands relating to developments in the so-called “conspiracy” case, where movements were organized to denounce the judicial process, considered not to have met the conditions for a fair and public trial, with families of detainees and journalists prevented from attending, covering and following the trial. In addition to the arrest of lawyer and former judge Ahmed Souab, those arrested in the so-called conspiracy case went on hunger strike to reject the remote trial. Abir Moussi, president of the Destourian Libre party, protested against being denied direct access to her children on the day of Eid al-Fitr. April saw a resurgence of activism and demonstrations calling for the decriminalization of civilian work and the release of people arrested for their humanitarian work, such as Saadia Mesbah, Cherifa Riahi, Mustafa Jamali, Abdallah Said, Mohamed Jouaou, Iyadh Boussalmi, Abdelrazak Krimi and Salwa Grissa… During the same month, demonstrations and statements continued in support of the Palestinian cause and against the assault on Gaza.
The death of three students following the fall of the high school wall in the Mazouna delegation triggered a state of anger and discontent whose impact spread across social networks and among all Tunisians, and took regional forms reminiscent of the post-2011 years. The protest in the Mazzouna delegation continued for days and took many forms, day and night, and spread to neighboring delegations such as Meknassi, Regab and Menzel Bouzayane. Generally speaking, this is a clear indication of the lack of social justice between the regions and highlights the deterioration of educational establishments in the public sector and the absence of minimum protection measures for students and teaching staff within these establishments.
Protests remain predominantly mixed in terms of the gender perspective of demonstrators, as the month recorded 20 actions organized solely by men, while the remainder were jointly organized by both sexes.

In addition to appeals through the media and petitions, which were a tool for expressing demands on some 56 occasions, protest actors turned to action on the ground in the rest of the demonstrations of their social, economic, civil and human rights demands. Vigils represented the main form of activism during April, accounting for a third of the movements tracked by the Tunisian Social Observatory team, followed by strikes, where 54 strikes were conducted throughout the month, then sit-ins, where 47 sit-ins were held by employees and workers and one sit-in by fishermen. According to the sample, 27 peaceful marches, 24 days of anger and 15 hunger strikes were organized during April. As part of their pressure to achieve their demands, social actors resorted to banning classes, blocking roads, burning rubber tires, disrupting activities and wearing red badges. An artistic mobilization was adopted on one occasion. It is worth noting that in April, unemployed graduates from the Gabès governorate marched on foot to the Presidency of the Republic to demand their right to employment.
Workers, employees and trade unions were the main protagonists of the 157 actions recorded in April 2025. Medical and paramedical workers made up the second largest protest bloc. Young doctors, largely supported by medical and paramedical staff, led a series of actions to demand improved economic conditions, the strengthening of public health institutions and their provision with the equipment needed to provide medical services guaranteeing the right to health of all Tunisians.

Human rights activists and defenders staged 44 protest actions, students staged 30 actions, prisoners demonstrated 12 times, as did journalists, lawyers, the unemployed, fishermen, farmers, cab drivers, regional bus drivers, shopkeepers, athletes, construction workers, teachers and professors.
As in previous months, Tunis, the capital, saw the highest number of protests, with 84 actions, during which social actors went to the Presidency of the Republic, either to denounce policies seen as a return to dictatorship, repression and lack of justice, or to demand its intervention in order to obtain long-awaited social and economic justice for vulnerable groups whose living conditions have been further marginalized by deteriorating living conditions.
Unusually, Tozeur occupied second place in the ranking of most protested regions with 40 actions, followed by Sidi Bouzid with 32, Kairouan with 28, Manouba with 26 and Gafsa with 20. Mahdia saw the lowest number of social movements with 6 protests, preceded by Zaghouan, Tataouine and Ariana, which each saw 7 social movements.
Around 28% of social movements were directed at the Presidency of the Government or the Presidency of the Republic, while the Ministry of Education was involved in 15.64% of movements recorded during April, followed by the Ministry of Health, which provoked 13% of protests. The Ministry of Agriculture was involved in 6% of protests, while the employer’s failure to meet its obligations to workers and employees was the cause of 9% of protests. Regional authorities such as municipalities, regional delegations, hospitals, judicial authorities and security forces were targeted by the remainder of protests.
Based on the sample studied, the Tunisian Social Observatory team of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights recorded 11 cases of suicide and attempted suicide during April 2025, around half of them among schoolchildren aged between thirteen and sixteen. A security guard committed suicide at his workplace with his own weapon, a young man who climbed the electricity pole in front of the Manouba court of first instance attempted to throw himself off and threatened suicide, another in a protest movement poured fire over his body in the middle of the Nabeul international fair, and a 50-year-old man committed suicide by burning himself. The category of suicides was divided between 4 women and 7 men.
As regards the geographical and spatial distribution of suicidal behavior, the majority of suicidal behaviors and attempts were recorded in the governorate of Kairouan, which saw 5 cases and attempts of suicide, 2 people committed suicide in Bizerte, and each of the governorates of Tunis, Gafsa, Manouba and Nabeul saw one case of suicide. Educational establishments saw 4 cases and attempts of suicide, while one case of suicide was recorded at home and another in the workplace, the remainder having chosen the public space (farm or public highway) as the setting for ending their lives. The methods used in suicide attempts and cases vary from throwing oneself, hanging oneself, burning oneself, to absorbing toxic substances or medication.
The geographical distribution of the suicide category indicates the need to highlight the issue of mental health care for children, taking into account the repercussions of the fragility experienced by young people, which has led a number of them to end their lives, with particular attention to the working conditions of a number of professions (security services), within which the act of suicide has become frequent.
As far as violence is concerned, the Tunisian Social Observatory continued to document acts of murder, relational violence, cases of domestic violence, murders of women, sexual assaults, thefts, burglaries, trafficking, abduction of minors, kidnapping, This confirms that the phenomenon of violence cannot be limited and is widespread and unevenly distributed across the Republic’s various governorates, with Tunis, Manouba and Sousse recording the highest numbers.
Acts of violence and marginalization are widespread in both large urban areas and rural zones. Public space was the main setting for acts of violence observed during April, followed by housing, industrial production facilities, administrative headquarters, recreational and tourist areas, and health facilities.
The majority of perpetrators were men, accounting for 91% of offenders. Six percent of violence was perpetrated by women, the remainder being mixed. As far as victims of violence are concerned, neither gender is excluded from recorded cases of violence. 44.44% of victims of violence were men, 42.22% women and 13.33% both men and women.
Among the cases of violence against women, we find a husband who burned his wife in the governorate of Tozeur and then fled to Algeria, and a similar crime in Sejoumi, where a husband killed his wife with a sharp instrument, and in the Gobaa region, in the governorate of Manouba, a husband killed his wife and stabbed his daughter. In the governorate of Manouba, the body of a lawyer was found burnt and thrown into the Oued Majerda, and in the governorate of Gabès, a girl was stabbed by her friend after an argument between them, and classes were suspended after a teacher in a Manouba school was attacked by a parent, and in Kasserine, a group of people broke into a wedding venue, creating a state of panic and fright.
The month also saw cases of rape and attempted hijacking of under-age children, both male and female, and witnessed murders, mutual violence, hold-ups, robberies and cases of police violence targeting sports team supporters and citizens, the most notable of which was the assault on a bus driver in Nabeul.
Hate speech, racism, exclusion and discrimination continue to multiply on social networks, and their circle widens still further as voices reject the judicial, economic and social paths adopted by the authorities, while official discourse tends to further divide Tunisians into patriots, anti-patriots, conspirators and loyalists.