After violent clashes with police Friday, only a few youths were out protesting against the "brutality" of police treatment after soldiers sealed off the city`s Medina market area where much of the violence took place.
Still there was no palpable tension on the streets nearby, two weeks after nationwide demonstrations ousted strongman president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power. The country has since witnessed ongoing protests to eradicate every vestige of his regime.
The main Habib Bourguiba Avenue, hub of many of the rallies, also appeared largely back to normal apart from small groups of demonstrators.
In northwestern Tunisia, two policemen and a soldier were hurt in clashes with demonstrators who set fire to a local police headquarters late Friday, the TAP news agency reported Saturday.
Security forces later succeeded in restoring calm, TAP said.
For its part, Human Rights Watch on Saturday demanded the interim government "urgently" investigate killings of protesters by security forces earlier this month by the old regime.
"The units and commanders responsible for these apparently unlawful killings should be identified and held accountable," Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director for the New York-based watchdog, told reporters in Tunis.
The group said it had found evidence of at least 21 people killed with live ammunition earlier this month in the cities of Kasserine and Tala.
Tunisia`s caretaker government said earlier that 78 people were killed in total, while the United Nations said at least 100 people had lost their lives.
Ghannouchi went on air late Friday to defend his reshuffled cabinet, saying talks on its composition had been opened "to all parties" including those from politics, civil society and universities.
"The two essential challenges facing Tunisia are the transition to democracy and relaunching economic activity" he told private television channel Nesma.
The country "has all the means necessary to succeed in this democratic transition that will allow all Tunisians, all political associations, to express themselves in complete freedom and to choose their leader after this transition phase," Ghannouchi said.
The 69-year-old prime minister -- a holdover from the Ben Ali regime who has been in office since 1999 -- has promised to hold democratic elections within six months.
Meanwhile, Austria announced it was immediately freezing any possible assets belonging to Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and close friends and relatives.
Switzerland has taken similar steps and the European Union is poised to do likewise.
On Wednesday, Tunis issued an international arrest warrant for Ben Ali, who is accused along with his wife and other members of his once all-powerful family of illegally acquiring assets and transferring funds abroad during his 23-year rule.
Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia January 14 and 33 members of his extended family have been arrested in Tunisia, AFP reported.
(SYS/KR-IFB/M016)
Editor: Suryanto
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