By Michel Cousins.
Tripoli, 14 March 2013:
Dozens of illegal street stalls and shacks in Tripoli’s busy Shara Rashid, where the city’s Central . . .[restrict]Market is located, were bulldozed today, Friday, in a bid to clean up the area and enforce planning regulations. The action was ordered by Interior Minister Ashour Shuwail.
The stalls had taken up so much space in the road that traffic in what is a wide street had been reduced to one lane. Often it was at a standstill and backed up into Shara Omar Mukhtar, bringing traffic there to a stop as well. Sometimes it backed up all the way into Martyrs Square and causing traffic jams there too.
The bulldozers, along with municipal police, national police and other law enforcement forces, were sent in at 5 am, before the market opened. They ripped through the corrugated steel shacks, giving no time for stall holders to remove their goods. At least a dozen traders’ vehicles were also crushed in the action. Thirty-one people are reported to have been arrested during the raid.
Later, stalls in a street near Tripoli Tower were similarly forcibly removed.
The Ministry says it intends to remove all illegal stalls that have sprung up on the capital’s streets in the absence of planning regulations enforcement since the revolution.
It is not clear yet if the Ministry also intends to demolish the large number of buildings that have also sprung up without planning permission, many with more storeys than was previously allowed and some being built partly on public land.
Today’s move appears to have widespread public support – both because it showed the authorities taking action to ensure law and order and also because it has eased street congestion. “This is very good,” said taxi driver Rida, heading down Shara Rashid today. “Now we can move here.”
This evening there was a procession of vehicles moving along the street to see what had been done. There were still the crushed vehicles to be seen along with the remnants of the stalls, piled up and awaiting removal, but street cleaners were busy tidying up the place.
Just over a month ago, fish stalls at the large roundabout by the port entrance which were blocking traffic were forcibly removed. They have since relocated to the roundabout at the start of the Gargaresh road. [/restrict]
