Tunisia - Part 1: Protests (Current Events)

Note: blog written up on January 12th.

As might be recalled, the Arab Spring started in Tunisia when a fruit vendor named Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on December 17, 2010. A month later, the country's president stepped down. To a large extent, Tunisia stands out as a success story of the Arab Spring due to democratic rule.

Currently, there are protests in the streets again. What's going on?


On a high level, due to high debt levels, the Tunisian government is being forced to raise taxes and reduce subsidies. This has drawn the ire of the populace.

The Christian Science Monitor attempts to indicate that the government is being "tolerant" of the protestors and is putting a positive spin on events:

The country’s duly elected prime minister, Youssef Chahed, even went to the streets to talk to demonstrators – a type of accountability hardly imagined elsewhere in the region . . . Police appeared sympathetic to the cries of youths left jobless by a stagnant economy.

Al Jazeera went with a more negative spin:

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN human rights office, called for calm and restraint on Friday, and urged Tunisia's government to ensure freedom of peaceful assembly . . . Protesters torched government buildings, looted shops and blocked roads, prompting the army to deploy some 2,100 troops to different parts of the country.

Al Jazeera had an interesting quote regarding the protests: Khelifa Chibani, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told Tunisia's press agency TAP on Friday that the protests appeared to be subsiding. That statement from the government might not be accurate as per the U.S. News and World Report (via Reuters): Activists and opposition politicians appealed for fresh demonstrations in the capital, Tunis, on Friday and on Sunday, the seventh anniversary of the toppling of authoritarian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali . . . 

As of January 12th, the arrest figure stood at 778. That seems like a high figure. On the other hand, the army deployed around 2,100 troops across the country, which seems like a small number of forces.

Though Tunisia isn't the largest country, it should be of interest as protests have now broken out in both Iran and Tunisia. Will there be outbreaks of protests in other Middle East/North Africa countries?