Protests continued Saturday in the capital of Tunisia with hundreds of peaceful demonstrators calling for the release of jailed protesters and an end to a heavy-handed crackdown by security forces, according to news outlets.

And the country's main labor union, which has often been criticized for being too cozy with the government, turned against the regime, calling for a release of prisoners and an end to a security crackdown, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

The protests in Tunisia and neighboring Algeria have garnered little attention in the Western media but have captivated the Arab world.

"Repression is no longer effective in controlling citizens," said an editorial Friday in the pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi. "Or so we believe, given what is now happening in Tunisia and Algeria. The security solutions that used to work in dealing with popular uprisings in the past have begun to lose their effectiveness, and are yielding the exact opposite results."