Hundreds of protesters had marched from the Ettadhamen district of the capital Tunis, where young people have clashed with police several nights this month, and were joined by hundreds more near the parliament.
The protesters are calling for a motion of no-confidence against the Speaker of Parliament, the leader of the Renaissance Movement, Rached Ghannouchi.
Thousands of Tunisians have gathered in front of the Parliament which is holding a session in order to give confidence to the government amendment, at a time when security forces surrounded the Parliament building to prevent the demonstrators from reaching it.
Police blocked the march with barricades to prevent protesters approaching the parliament building where lawmakers were holding a tense debate on a disputed government reshuffle.
"The government that only uses police to protect itself from the people – it has no more legitimacy," said one protester, Salem Ben Saleh, who is unemployed.
Lawyer Hazem al-Kassouri, a Tunisian political scientist said that freedom of expression and peaceful protest is guaranteed by the constitution and international covenants, and he denounced the militarization of the Parliament and the intransigence of the Tunisian government, the Renaissance Movement which controls the Parliament to listen to the people's voice.
The Tunisian political scientist pointed out that the militarization and sweeping of Turkish armored vehicles is a message to a people who wanted life, that "the Brotherhood is the makers of oppression and betrayal, and that their alleged democracy has revealed its true image."
An uprising in Tunisia in late 2010 kick-started a series of revolutions that spread through the Middle East and became known as the Arab Spring.
But there has been deep division between Islamists and secular opponents since the revolution. Many Tunisians, particularly the young, complain that their quest for secular democracy has been hijacked by intolerant Islamists, namely the Muslim Brotherhood.
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