Tunisia secret security very much in business

As usual we were looking for trouble and being journalists – let’s face it – relieved to find it. As usual these days in Tunis the trouble was brewing all around the Interior Ministry in the center of town.

These days it is surrounded by several elegant necklaces of razor wire which sparkle even in the cold grey of the north African winter.

Just up the road the Libyan embassy, similarly decorated, armoured personnel carriers, squat and brooding nearby, with various windows smashed from recent riots.

Channel 4 News special report: Arab revolt: Middlea East uprisings

But what of this trouble? Well it was obvious wasnt it? Loads of blokes in jeans, leather jackets and scarves over faces: the international uniform of your urban rioter. So we hung and waited for it all to kick off.

But you didnt have to be there long to sus that these crowds of would-be rioters – hundreds of them – were not rioters at all.

In fact, they are all part of the not-so secret security apparatus of this country. Very much intact. Very much in business. Very much snatching and arresting any young man they could find.

We watched scores of young men dragged and sometimes beaten to unseen waiting vans. A plain clothed policewoman either kicked or punched hard in the stomach every single arrested youth dragged past by two of her colleagues. She smiled at me and gave a thumbs up.

All of this proof it seems of what protesters over in Kasbah Square had been telling us only this morning: that the prime minister may have resigned but the government, the state apparatus, the systems of repression are all very much intact.

Truly the revolution in Tunisia which sparked this extraordinary period is far from over yet.