A 25-year-old Egyptian died on Tuesday after torching himself in the coastal city of Alexandria for fialing to find a job as a lawyer set himself of fire near the Parliament, security sources said, the latest cases echoing an act of self-immolation in Tunisia that triggered massive protests. In Alexandria, the unemployed youth torched himself on the roof of the building where he lives in el-Muntazah area after allegedly failing to get a job. "A 25-year-old man called Ahmed Hashem was admitted to the Academic Hospital today (Tuesday) with severe burns after he set himself on fire. He later died," a Health Ministry official said. He added that Hashem had a record of psychic diseases, denying his self-immolation was for political reasons. In Cairo, an angry lawyer did the same but his condition is stable."The 50-year-old lawyer, Mohamed Farouq Hassan, shouted slogans against rising prices before setting himself alight near the People's Assembly before he was carried by an ambulance to a nearby hosiptal," one source said. He added that Hassan was from the nearby neighbourhood of el-Sayyeda Zeinab in Islamic Cairo. "He is now receiving treatment in el-Munira Hospital," the source said. A Health Ministry spokesman said later in the day, that the condition of Hassan was stable and that he would leave hospital within 48 hours. "The hospital received the 50-year-old Hassan, who was carried by an abmulance. His burnings were all superficial. He is in a good condition and is expected to leave in one day or two," spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin said. Prosecutors questioned Hassan, who said that his duaghter's three-month absence pushed him to end his life due to police's ignoring his complaints to return her, according a report by the official Middle East News Agency (MENA). On Monday, an Egyptian, aged about 50, poured petrol over himself and lit it after protesting against poor living conditions. His injuries were described as minor. Similar cases were reported in Algeria and Mauritania. Like Tunisians, whose public protests led to the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Arabs in many countries are frustrated by soaring prices, poverty, high unemployment and authoritarian systems of rule that give them no voice. Political activists throughout the Arab world say they have been inspired by the example of Tunisia, the first country in decades where an Arab leader was toppled by public protests. The protests in Tunisia erupted after the suicide of 26-year-old vegetable trader Mohamed Bouazizi, who set himself on fire on December 17 because police seized his grocery cart. Bouazizi died weeks later of his burns, becoming a martyr to crowds of students and the unemployed protesting against poor living conditions. Ben Ali had visited him in hospital, a gesture that failed to win him public sympathy. There have been other self-immolation cases across the region, apparently inspired by Tunisia's Bouazizi. Arabs in many states are frustrated by soaring prices, poverty, high unemployment and authoritarian systems of rule that give them no voice.
