Some 33 members of ousted¹ Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's family have been held, state TV says.

突尼斯国家电视台称，大约33位流放总统扎因·阿比丁·本·阿里的家人被捕。

unity² government to exclude members of Mr Ben Ali's RCD party" src="http://www.enread.com/upimg/allimg/110120/1_110120053512_1.jpg" width="304" height="171" />
Protesters want the unity government to exclude members of Mr Ben Ali's RCD party
It said that they were arrested as they tried to leave the country.

In a televised speech, interim³ leader Fouad Mebazaa vowed⁴ a "total break" with the past, an independent justice system and media freedoms.

In a separate development, the new government said it had freed all political prisoners. The reported move comes after weeks of mass protests.

More than 100 people have reportedly died in the unrest, the UN said, promising⁵ to carry out an investigation⁶.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets again in the Tunisian capital Tunis, urging allies of the ousted president to stop clinging to（坚持，依靠） power.

Waving banners and chanting, they called for all links to the old regime to be severed⁷（断绝，分离） .

However, riot police did not respond with tear gas or water cannons⁸, the BBC's Wyre Davies in Tunis reports.

While the situation remains⁹ tense, curfew（宵禁） hours have been reduced, traffic on the streets is increasing, political cartoons have appeared in the newly free press and some shops and businesses are reopening, our correspondent says.

Amnesty

"I guarantee that this transition government will ensure a total break with the past," Mr Mebazaa said on Wednesday.

"Together we can write a new page in the history of our country."

In his first address to the nation since Mr Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Mr Mebazaa also thanked the army for helping¹⁰ to maintain security, saying that the situation was returning to normal.

"We have discovered those responsible for the terror in our country. We have arrested these armed gangs."

He added that the priority for the new government would be to issue an amnesty for all political prisoners.

Najib Chebbi, an opposition¹¹ leader who is now a member of the new cabinet, and Mustapha Ben Jafar, one of several new ministers who dropped out of the unity government, were both quoted by news agencies as saying that all the political prisoners were released on Wednesday.

They said these included members of a banned Islamist movement.

Separately, Tunisia's state news agency TAP said that the first of more than 1,800 prisoners who had been sentenced to less than six months were already being released.