Tunisia Analysis: The Significance of the Revolution (Bamyeh)

At the moment it is abundantly easy to sense everywhere in the Arab World elation at what appears to be one of greatest events in modern Arab history. A genuine popular revolution, spontaneous and apparently leaderless, yet sustained and remarkably determined, overthrew a system that by all accounts had been the most entrenched and secure in the whole region. The wider implications beyond Tunisia are hard to miss. Just as in the case of the Iranian revolution more than three decades ago, what is now happening in Tunisia is watched by all in the Arab world --- as either a likely model of the transformation to come in their respective countries, or at least as a badly needed source of revolutionary inspiration.

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Tunisia Media Special: Journalists to President "End Censorship on Coverage of Unrest"

The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by your government's attempt to censor coverage of recent protests against unemployment and corruption in Tunisia. We are specifically alarmed by the confiscation of two opposition weeklies, the government's denunciation of Al-Jazeera, the systematic obstruction of reporting and broadcasting, as well as the blocking of news websites that are covering the protests. We call on your government to bring to an immediate end its efforts to curtail independent reporting and to reverse course on the restrictions in place since mid-December.

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Tunisia Analysis: Is This The Fall of the Government? (Whitaker)

The Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali may try to cling on, but his regime now has a fin de siècle air about it. He came to power in 1987 by declaring President Bourguiba unfit for office. It's probably just a matter of time before someone else delivers that same message to Ben Ali.

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