国际英语新闻：Tunisian police joins demonstrations as protests against interim gov't continue

TUNIS, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Tunisian police joined the demonstrators in the capital on Saturday, asking for the creation of a union to defend their rights.

For the first time since the country's independence in 1956, hundreds of policemen demonstrated before the Tunisian labor union headquarters, claiming that their social conditions had deteriorated in the past two decades and chanting slogans such as "We are innocent of the martyrs' blood" and "Dignity and freedom for the police".

Some of the slogans urged for the resignation of the country's interim government.

Although a relative calm reigned over the country as flags were flying half mast during the three-day mourning, demonstrations took place in Tunis against the transitional government. Despite the curfew, a "caravan of liberation" composed of anti-government protestors from western and southern Tunisia was expected Saturday night in the capital.

In a statement released on Saturday, government spokesman Taieb Baccouche drew a line between "the rights to peaceful protest and the risk of anarchy."

The interim Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi pledged in an interview Friday on Tunisian television that he would quit politics after the elections due within 6 months.

Schools and universities will reopen as of next week, but the curfew will remain in place. Hundreds of political prisoners have been released and a number of banned parties have been legalized by the new government.

The regime of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fell a week ago after weeks of unrest triggered by the suicide of a street vendor in the southern city of Sidi Bouzid and protests against unemployment and high prices. A total of 78 people were killed during violent clashes between demonstrators and the police.

Following the ouster of Ben Ali, 33 members of his family, referred to by the local media as "the mafia", were arrested, and a search warrant has been launched against those who fled.