Tunisian Social Observatory  

January – March 2025 Report 

Rise of the protest movement Suicides by protest and violence in a context of persistent impunity 

At the start of 2025, the protest movement resumed its activity and demands, ending the first quarter of the year with 1,132 protest actions. The first months of the year regained momentum, and the pace of protests doubled by 238% compared with the same period the previous year. In 2024, only 475 actions were recorded in the first three months of the year, making it the lowest year in terms of movements since 2011. 

Demands linked to the regularization of the professional status of old, unresolved social files, such as construction workers, teachers and supply teachers, the right to employ unemployed graduates, improved working conditions and payment of benefits, were the main thrust of the movement in the first months of the year. These issues were at the heart of the movement’s concerns during the first months of the year, and accounted for a percentage of 53%. 

Contrary to custom, the official discourse of the Presidency of the Republic, which on more than one occasion called for an end to precarious contracts, the resolution of outstanding professional situations and the achievement of the desired social justice, served as a catalyst for the launch of a wave of movements and sit-ins at the beginning of the year, the numbers of which surged and multiplied more than once, and the pace of which would not have been slowed or curbed had it not been for the arrival of Ramadan during the month of March. 

March saw the lowest number of actions since the start of the year, with 217, compared to February, which recorded 432 actions, and January, during which 483 protest actions were observed. 

In the first quarter of 2025, social actors are adopting digital space less and less as a framework for demands in favor of public space, including workplaces, roads, public places, squares, judicial institutions and prisons. 

The Tunisian Social Observatory continues to monitor the evolution of Tunisians’ dissatisfaction, due to rising prices, falling living standards and the difficulty of meeting life’s needs. In addition to protesting against the inadequacy of infrastructure, the deterioration of public administrative services, the weakness of the transport fleet, the continuous interruption of drinking water and the fluctuating supply, which has become a permanent and daily dilemma for the population in towns and rural areas in all the Republic’s governorates without exception. 

The first three months of the year saw a further decline in freedom of expression and of the press, with threats and violations multiplying, and the level of harassment of journalists and users of social media networks increasing. The organization of the first session of the trial of the defendants in the so-called conspiracy case, on March 4, 2025, was marked by a fierce return of smear campaigns and cyber-harassment that targeted all voices defending the defendants’ right to a face-to-face, not remote, trial in which all the fundamentals of a fair trial are respected. 

The team follows the official party’s attachment to the rhetoric of betrayal and division, and the adoption of a binary narrative between patriots, unpatriots and conspirators against the security and stability of the state. Simultaneously, the situation of sub-Saharan migrants is worsening in a context of increasing violence and discrimination against them, and uncertainty about their fate after they found themselves trapped in olive groves in the delegations of El Amra and Jebeniana in the governorate of Sfax… unable to leave or realize the dream of reaching the northern shore of the Mediterranean. 

At the same time, we note the continuation of movements in support of the Palestinian resistance throughout the first months of the year, denouncing the persistence of the genocide perpetrated by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, multiplying actions of support on the part of Tunisians, and each time taking more diverse and richer cultural and economic forms (boycotts). 

Employees, workers and the unemployed topped the list of actors who organized actions in the first quarter of the year, where they represented the main actor in around half of the actions recorded, followed by activists, rights defenders and trade unionists, students, prisoners and journalists. Next come activists, rights defenders, trade unionists, students, prisoners and journalists, who account for a quarter of the movements that have taken place in squares and boulevards since the beginning of the year. The same period also saw movements by residents, farmers, shopkeepers, individual and public bus drivers, students, parents, health workers, medical staff, sports teams and players. 

The Tunisian capital, which bears witness to the centralization of decision-making, continues to occupy first place in the first quarter of the year, with 293 industrial actions. Next came Tataouine with 75 actions, Gafsa with 74 actions, Kairouan with 61 actions, Jendouba with 54 actions, Nabeul with 53 actions, Medenine with 51 actions, Tozeur and Sidi Bouzid with 50 actions, Kasserine with 48 actions, Bizerte with 40 actions, Sousse and Manouba with 36 actions… The protest zone extended to all the Republic’s governorates without exception, with Zaghouan recording the lowest number with 12 actions in the first three months of the year. 

More than 88% of the actions observed took place on the ground, mainly involving vigils, sit-ins, labor strikes, business interruptions, hunger strikes, road blockades, red badge wearing, days of rage and workplace closures. The rest took digital form, in the form of appeals, petitions and statements of condemnation via the media and social networking sites. The movements recorded in the first three months of the year were not broken down by gender, as 984 of them were organized collectively, while men formed 107 movements and women 41 movements. 

In over 80% of actions, social actors targeted official authorities, including the presidency of the Republic, the presidency of the government, regional authorities, ministries, municipalities and governors, while the remainder mainly targeted judicial authorities and the employer. 

Based on the sample studied, in the first three months of the year, 33 suicide cases and attempts were tracked, many of them in the form of theatrical protests in the public space or in front of security service headquarters or inside judicial spaces or educational institutions. They chose to communicate their distress and the extent of the despair they felt, which led them to refuse to go on and to end their lives by hanging, setting fire to, consuming toxic substances or taking drugs.  

The suicides monitored by the Tunisian Social Observatory team include 14 youth suicides, 10 child suicides, 8 adult suicides and one elderly suicide. Men accounted for 25 of the suicides, while women represented 8 cases. 

The first quarter of the year was also characterized by widespread violence in a general context of impunity in cases of feminicide, the spread of cyber-violence, discriminatory discourse, racism and defamation… and a corresponding downplaying of the effects of this violence by official bodies, the media and citizens alike.  

The first three months of the year saw a drop in the volume of interpersonal violence, while the public space occupied first place among the places and settings in which violence is exercised. These include the street, educational establishments such as schools and institutes, administrative and health facilities, and economic production institutions. 

Violence is gradually evolving towards gender-specific forms, with a growing proportion of male aggressors accounting for 84% of recorded cases, while the number of victims of violence is closely divided between men, who make up 47% of victims, and women, who account for 40%. Assault and intimidation are the main targets of recorded cases of violence, followed by theft and sexual assault. 

As for the types of violence recorded during the first quarter of the year, they mainly took the form of criminal offences, with murder or death threats accounting for the largest number of incidents observed, followed by theft and burglary. Other acts of violence, such as assaults on employees, kidnapping, rape, violence against children and women, domestic violence, sexual harassment, death threats and violence against men, were also documented.