Evening star., 1952-01-20
Outbreaks in Tunisia
Continue With Deaths
Rising Past Dozen
By the Assoeioted Press

BY the Assocoted Press
PARIS, Jan. 19.-ReportS filter
ing out of strife-town, censorship
clouded Tunisia tonight described
new violence that brought the
death toll in the current crisis to
more than dozen.
There was little official news.
But what scattered reports did
reach Paris agreed that outbreaks
were continuing-and getting more
violent-between Tunisians de-
manding their independence and
the French-sponsored police try
ing to keep order.
Gunfire ratified at Mateur, a
village southwest of the Mediter-
ranean port Of Bizerte.
French reports from the scene
said seven Tunisians were killed
and rs wounded after about 1000
men, armed with clubs, pitchforks
and stones, assaulted police head
quarters. The attack apparently
was set off by the arrest of three
leaders of a nationalist demon
stration. A French witness said
the police opened fire after IS
minutes of fighting.
u, n, Delegates Make Plea.
Tunisian delegates. here to press
the United Nations for interven-
tion, said they had been told by
telephone from Tunisia that seven
persons were killed. and Is were
wounded in that village.
The Mateur incident started,
they said, when police and French
troops tried to break up a demon
stration organized by a Tunisian
nationalist party, the Neo-Des-
tour, in support of a Tunisia wide
general strike.
nabbed in pre-dawn raids yester-
ter Of Justice Salah Ben YousSef
and Minister of Social Justice Mo-
hammed Badra, prevailed on the
Arab bloc in the United Nations
to ask U. N. Assembly President
Padi1la Nervo of Mexico to tryl
personally to stop the bloodshed
in the North African protectorate.
The Tunisian Arabs already have
asked the Security Council to step
in and resolve the dispute be-
tween Tunisia and the French
protectorate government. The dis
pute is over whether Tunisian
Arabs shall have complete auton-
on1y in handling their local affairs,
or whether these affairs shall be
managed partly by Frenchmen.
Party Session Banned.
The present disturbances began
the middle of this week when
French officials banned a scheduled |
congress of the Neo-Destour tnew
constitutional party), the center of
the nationalist movement.
When Tunisians demonstrated
against the ban, police charged
their professions and rioting fol-
lowed. At least six were killed in
the early fighting and the number
Of wounded was estimated as high I
as I50. y
ANeo-Destour leaders then
threatened to hold their congress
anyway. whereupon police ar
rested . group of top nationalists
and fiew them out Of Tunis to a |
bleak coastal village called Tab
afka. q
500 More Arrests.
nationalist sources said somel |
500 Others also were arrested. |
Among the top men of the party
nabbed IN pre-draw raids yester-
day was Party Boss Habib Bour-
giba, who recently toured the
United States lecture circuits
plumping for support for Tunisian
independence.
To protest the arrests, the Ma
tionalist-led Tunisian trade union
called strike to try to paralyze
the country.
An additional fifty arrests were
reported today, all of them
Tunisian women nationalists who
tangled with police in the capital
city of Tunis. /