Hundreds of police roamed the main streets of Tunis on Friday to prevent demonstrators from protesting a government invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to attend a summit this year, eyewitnesses said.
The North African country’s leading opposition parties vowed to stop Sharon from becoming the first Israeli leader to visit Tunisia in 57 years for a U.N.-backed World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November.
Opposition parties and human rights groups have said the visit by Sharon would bring "lasting shame" on the country.
The Israeli leader is unpopular because of his government’s policies towards the Palestinians and his role as defence minister during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
About 400 riot police and many more plainclothes police ringed the Bourse de Travail main conference complex in downtown Tunis where opposition supporters planned to hold a rally on Friday against Sharon’s invitation.
Bands of about 30 police, most of them in plainclothes, scattered all over street corners in the centre of the city to bar protesters from arriving to the conference complex or staging street demonstrations elsewhere in the city.

Reuters - Tunis
04 - 03 - 2005