Injured protesters in Tunisia uprising sew lips in protest
Angry and frustrated at being ignored, some of the injured victims of Tunisia's Arab Spring uprising have taken drastic steps to highlight their plight by having their lips sewn shut.
Calling themselves 'The Injured of the Tunisian Revolution', they have been protesting for more than one year at a lack of health care.
For the last month they have manned a protest camp in front of country's parliament building. But the victims say authorities are still ignoring them and therefore staged their symbolic and painful demonstration on Thursday.
"We've decided to sew our mouths because we screamed and nobody listened to us," Mohamed Snoussi said. "All the commissions and administrations we've visited just postponed our cases."
Hamza Missaoui expressed the frustrations of the demonstrators, some of whom were wounded while overthrowing the regime of president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in January last year. Others say they have been injured by police more recently.
"I'm going to sew my mouth to support all the wounded of the revolution throughout the country and we'll never forgive the MPs we've elected for their lack of interest in us," Missaoui said.
Before his lips were closed with needle and thread, Malek Aloui said: "I was wounded on January 28. The police used all forms of torture. They beat us and extinguished their cigarettes on our bodies."
Source: Aljazeera
