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Entries in Tunisia (174)

Monday
Dec192011

Tunisia and Beyond Feature: Remembering Mohamed Bouazizi 

A year ago last Saturday, Tunisian market-seller Mohamed Bou'azizi doused himself in gasoline and set himself alight. He died 18 days later from the burns.

Mohamed's death has been perceived as the starting point of subsequent uprisings, not only in Tunisia but across North Africa and the Middle East. If the symbolic weight of Mohamed's act has yet to be fully realised, the tangible outcome of his sacrificial act was both the coalescence of anger and despair with the Ben Ali regime and the capacity to spark and inspire multitudes within and beyond national boundaries.

Central to Mohamed's death were his material conditions as father and family breadwinner, a situation which left him feeling bereft of any alternative but a profound public wail of rage through self-immolation. In a post-Ben Ali Tunisia, and a Middle East and North Africa fraught with uncertainties, that must not be lost in the search for narratives to explain the so-called Arab Spring. There are some straightforward causes at its core: the fundamental wish of people to live and work and earn --- and simply be --- with the guarantee of certain basic freedoms and opportunities, rather than to suffer under unelected tyrannies and to endure systems of repression.

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Saturday
Dec172011

Syria, Egypt, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Beyond a "Return" to Protest

Egyptian military drag, and disrobe a female protester

See also Bahrain Video Special: The Police Attack Protesters at Budaiya
Friday's Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Beat Goes On --- Anticipating Friday's Protests


2100 GMT: One Egyptian soldier beats a protester while another soldier wields a handgun:

2005 GMT: An EA source is reporting another death from the activities of the security forces in Bahrain. Abdali Al Mawaly, a 58-year-old man, suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation in Mugsha village on Friday and died this evening. People are now gathered around his house.

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Sunday
Dec112011

Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Cutting Off Homs?

A protester in Homs in Syria sends a message

See also Syria 1st-Hand: Awaiting the Regime's Tanks in Binnish
Yemen Document: The Nobel Peace Prize Speech of Tawakkul Karman
Saturday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A New York Times Journalist is Detained, But What of the 40 People Killed?


2125 GMT: A breaking story tonight --- Syrian activist Alexander Page, a leading source of information on the political crisis, has been held in Doha Airport in Qatar tonight and threatened with deportation to Syria. He sent a message, with the last entry at 2056 GMT:

'

I've been stopped in Doha Airport and told I'm not allowed entry and that they will get me on the first plane to my homeland. I am now being held in transit and telling them that I ca'nt go to Syria because I'm wanted and these idiots don't understand.

I'm not told why, I'm just told that I'm not allowed entry. I said ok, "I'll go back." He said, "You are Syrian, then that's where you go."

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Monday
Dec052011

Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Sorting Out "Shameless Acts of Terror"

Syrian activist/blogger Razan Ghazzawi, Egyptian activist/blogger Alaa Abd-El Fattah, and Bahraini activist/blogger Ali Abdulemam, photographed in Budapest in 2008 --- Ghazzawi was detained this weekend, Abd-El Fattah is in prison, and Abdulemam is in hiding from a 15-year sentence

See also Saudi Arabia Feature: 16 Reformists Given Long Prison Sentences
Syria Feature: The Arrest of Activist Razan Ghazzawi
Sunday's Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Actress's Message


2214 GMT: As we close the LiveBlog, we turn to Yemen. Reuters confirms the news that at least 1 civilian was killed by soldiers today in Taiz:

Tanks, armored vehicles and opposition fighters left some areas of Taiz, a hub of 10 months of unrest against Saleh's 33-year rule, but gunmen and snipers remained and had fired on demonstrators, witnesses said.

"Both sides violated the ceasefire agreement. We were marching peacefully and they (Saleh's forces) shot at us yet again," medical student Hamoud al-Aklamy told Reuters.

Activists, right now, are reporting loud explosions in various neighborhoods of the capital city, Sana'a. Every time it appears as though things in Yemen are calming down, something happens to remind us that in Yemen, just like in many places in the region, Arab Spring is far from over, despite the fact that it is now about to enter its second year.

2205 GMT: Protesters are still conducting a sit-in protest in Tahrir Square in the Egyptian capital Cairo, demanding that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces release all political prisoners. The demonstrators have announced that they will allow traffic to flow again in the square, while continuing the sit-in.

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Saturday
Dec032011

Syria, Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Prosecution Creep?

Human rights activist Razan Zaitouneh sends a video message from hiding in Damascus, "We face one of the most brutal regimes in the region and in the world"

See also Bahrain Feature : How The Regime Is Restoring Peace, The American Way
Syria Opinion: Why There Should --- And Will --- Be a No-Fly Zone
Friday's Syria, Egypt (and Beyond) Liveblog: A United Front


1900 GMT: A mass protest tonight in the Karam al-Shami section of Homs in Syria:

1855 GMT: Bahraini activist Zainab Alkhawaja criticises the regime's appointment of John Yates, former Assistant Commission of London's police (see 1325 GMT), to "reform" the kingdom's law enforcement:

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Wednesday
Nov162011

Middle East/North Africa Analysis: The Rise of a "Civic Islamism"? (Sadiki)

Rachid Ghannounchi, leader of Tunisia's EnnadhaCivic Islamism is linked with the novelty of the context, the Arab Spring, and the new dynamic of legalised Islamism as in Egypt and Tunisia. Civic Islamism displays features of impressive organisation for the contest of power, coupled with an aptitude to penetrate secular civil society through coalition-building with non-Islamists.

Only through inclusion, competition, participation and the tests of "power", will this force learn to moderate its politics, gradually learning to take its place amongst the progenitors of civic politics in the Arab spring states.

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Saturday
Nov052011

Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Running Down a Protest

Montage of protest and the response by security forces on Friday in Bahrain

See also Egypt Letter: Alaa Abd-El Fattah Blogs from Jail "These Are My Limits"
Egypt Feature: Activists Try to Bridge Digital Divide by Taking "Tweets to the Streets"
Syria Video Special: Another Friday of Protests
Friday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: And There Will Be Marches....


2030 GMT: An anti-regime demonstration in the Midan district of the Syrian capital Damascus tonight:

1910 GMT: Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the opposition Syrian National Council, has addressed the Syrian people in a televised address tonight. A summary, provided on Twitter:

This crisis has unified efforts of all Syrians....Syria will no longer be like a farm owned by a single family....A new constitution will give rights to minorities, especially Kurds....Power will be in the hands of people, they decide who rule them.

Every drop of blood is one more step on the way to freedom....Those who use violence against their own people are traitors who will fall and lose.

The Syrian National Council is your way to make your voices heard around the world. We are honored by your support....We will not negotiate or compromise.

Regime attempts to buy time will not help them....We have asked the Arab League and UN to protect civilians in Syria....We salute the Free Syrian Army who defended their brothers and their peaceful protests....Syrians will not forget the sacrifices of those who defended the uprising.

We tell people who are undecided, this revolution is yours....Syrians will not forget those who supported their revolutions....The regime of tyranny has fallen, but they are still trying to cling to power.

New Syria is being built today....The future Syria will be coming soon, free, democratic, and without slavery....Long live free Syria.

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Wednesday
Nov022011

US Politics Special: A Pizza-Based Foreign Policy Lesson for Herman Cain

Herman, if you must compare foreign policy to pizza-making...keep reading


Israel and Palestine: Half and Half Pizza

It was supposed to be half and half, but someone mixed all the toppings up! Don’t try to separate them or you’ll burn your hands in the cheese. Let the toppings magically figure out how to migrate to their own side of the pizza before you get involved.

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Saturday
Oct292011

Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Deaths Return to Hama

Video of Friday's killings in Hama in Syria outside a mosque

See also Bahrain 1st-Hand: The People of Sitra "We Are Still Here. We Are Demanding. We Exist"
"Yes, We Will Tweet": How a Flashmob Took Over a New Media Conference in Lebanon
Bahrain Feature: The Freedom Torch Protests
Syria Video Special: Today's Protests Across the Country
Friday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Back on the Streets?


1950 GMT: Activists say 10 Syrian security agents and an army deserter were killed on Saturday when a bus transporting security agents between the villages of Al-Habit and Kafrnabuda in Idlib Province, in northwestern Syria close to the Turkish border, was ambushed "by armed men, probably deserters".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had said that 17 soldiers were killed late on Friday in the central city of Homs when gunmen, believed to be deserters, attacked two checkpoints.

Elsewhere on Saturday, according to the Observatory, five civilians, including a woman and a 15-year-old teenager, were killed and several wounded by gunfire from Syrian forces and snipers in Homs Province (see 1915 GMT).

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Friday
Oct282011

Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Back on the Streets?

An anti-regime protest in Zabadani, outside the Syrian capital Damascus, last night

See also,Bahrain Feature: The Freedom Torch Protests
Syria Video Special: Today's Protests Across the Country

Bahrain Propaganda 101: Foreign Minister Gets a Boost from Washington's Journalists
Thursday's Syria, Yemen (and Beyond): Child Martyrs and Broken Promises


2230 GMT: Upset at the disqualification of a political party for "irregularities" from Sunday's election, a crowd of protesters allegedly tried to attack the regional government headquarters today in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. Police reportedly fired into the air to disrupt the protests:

2221 GMT: Al Jazeera is now reporting that today's death toll in Syria has topped 40. The other significant development? Most of the protesters were killed in Hama, adding credibility to details that EA reported earlier.

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