Mohamed Moufli, 45, was killed overnight Friday as police was using tear gas to disperse the protesters. He was hit in the head by a tear gas canister and died soon afterwards in hospital.

The incident happened in the central Tunisian town of Gafsa during a demonstration against the assassination of the country’s opposition leader Mohamed al-Brahmi.

Gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed Brahmi in front of his wife and daughter outside his home in the capital, Tunis, on Thursday.

Brahmi, 58, led the Movement of the People Party.

On Friday, Tunisia’s Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said the assassination was the work of an extremist Salafist.

Jeddou also said the opposition politician was murdered with the same weapon used in the killing of another opposition figure Chokri Belaid in February.

Brahmi’s assassination triggered widespread anti-government rallies nationwide.

Thousands of the angry supporters of the slain opposition figure poured onto the streets of Tunis and other cities on Friday to protest the assassination and called for the government to resign.

Tunisian people have been the first Arab nation who could topple a dictator during MENA uprisings. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his family fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14, 2011 after popular protests ended his 23-year rule.

NTJ/SHI