FRED DUFOUR | AFP People demonstrate in central Tunis on January 17, 2011. Tunisian protesters called for the abolition of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s ruling party amid a chaotic power vacuum as politicians prepared a government of national unity.
By (AFP)Posted Sunday, January 23 2011 at 20:17
MONTREAL, Sunday
Relatives of Tunisia’s ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali have arrived in Canada, a government official in Ottawa told AFP on Saturday.
The official confirmed, without offering details, a report in Le Journal de Quebec, which said one of Ben Ali’s many brothers-in-law arrived in Montreal on Friday morning aboard a private jet accompanied by his wife, their children and a governess.
Ben Ali’s wife Leila Trabelsi has several brothers, and neither source specified which one had arrived in Canada. The family reportedly checked into a hotel in Montreal.
An official at Citizenship and Immigration Canada said Ottawa was not offering asylum to Ben Ali’s family.
“Mr Ben Ali, deposed members of the former Tunisian regime and their immediate families are not welcome in Canada,” said spokesman Douglas Kellam, who declined to comment on any specific cases for privacy reasons.
“Anyone entering Canada must pass a number of tests. In the case of Tunisians, they must have a valid visa issued by the government of Canada.”
The official added that visas “are only issued by our officers when they are satisfied that the individual will leave Canada once the visa expires. Given that members of the regime cannot return to Tunisia, that would be a challenge.”
The news of the arrivals drew protests from Tunisians in Montreal, many of who had demonstrated in Canada against the former regime.
Meanwhile, thousands of anti-government protesters rallied outside Tunisian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi’s office on Sunday, calling for him to quit after the downfall of the north African state’s 23-year regime.
“The people have come to bring down the government,” the protesters chanted as they brandished pictures of some of the dozens of people killed by security forces during the uprising against president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
They broke through security cordons to reach the doors of the building in central Tunis but the rally remained mostly peaceful and security was low. A police source estimated the number of protesters at around 3,000 people.
The new transitional government, put in place after Ben Ali resigned and fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14, has unveiled unprecedented freedoms but it still includes Ghannouchi and other old-regime figures.
“We have come to bring down the rest of the dictatorship,” said Mohammed Layani, an elderly man draped in a Tunisian flag, who arrived with hundreds of others from the region in central Tunisia where the uprising began.
Samit, a young man from the city of Kairouan, said: “We are outcasts in our own country. All the wealth goes to the coast. But our main demand is freedom before bread. We want this fascist and corrupt regime to fall.”
On a sign reading “Prime Minister’s Office,” a protester had scrawled: “Ministry of the People”. A placard held up during the rally read:
“They stole our money, they won’t steal our revolution.”
“They stole our money, they won’t steal our revolution.”
The protest was supported by the General Union of Tunisian Workers, best known under its French acronym UGTT, which played a key role in anti-Ben Ali protests and has refused to recognise the fledgling government.
The state news agency TAP, meanwhile, said that security forces had detained two more figures linked to the old regime — Senate chief Abdallah Kallal and Ben Ali adviser Abdel Aziz Ben Dhia.
The authorities say they have arrested 33 members of Ben Ali’s family.
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