Tunisia: Powerful UGTT calls for strike after student stabbed teacher

UGTT, Tunisia’s most powerful workers’ union, has called for a general strike for this Tuesday to denounce the stabbing of a high school teacher by a student in the costal town of Ezzahra, south of capital Tunis.

Sahbi Ben Slama, a high-school History and Geography teacher was assaulted by a student who stabbed him multiple times on the head and the face with a knife and a blade.

The student, 17, who handed himself to security authorities, according to spokesperson of Ben Arous court, said he gruesomely attack his teacher because the latter refused to let him re-sit for a History-Geography exam.

Ben Slama according to the secondary education union is in a critical state and underwent several surgeries and has been transferred to the country’s military hospital for further treatment.

The UGTT condemned the attack while the secondary education union called for a strike this Tuesday.

The union also condemned the ministry of education’s lenience arguing that it has failed to address attacks on teachers.