Archive: tunisia

10th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
[This is a Google-assisted translation of the French version posted on the Tunisie7 website.] Citizens, citizens, I am addressing you today, inside and outside the country, following disturbances and acts of violence and degradation that have targeted public and private property in some villages… Read more
10th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
The Tunisian uprising is beginning to get more coverage in the English-language media, so this may be a suitable moment to look at the sort of coverage it is getting.  Considering the horrific violence meted out by the police over the weekend, the Ben Ali regime is being given an extraordinarily… Read more
9th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
A quick update. Al-Jazeera and AFP are reporting that at least 20 people have died in the clashes in two Tunisian cities during the last 24 hours.  Citing trade union sources, al-Jazeera says six were killed in Thala and a further 14 elsewhere in the Kasserine region. The Tunisian Kalima website … Read more
9th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
The Tunisian regime has responded to American calls for restraint... with live bullets. A number of protesters were shot dead last night – possibly 10 or more. Most reports attribute the shootings to the police, though the army has now been deployed some areas – allegedly to protect government… Read more
8th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
Yesterday – day 22 of the Tunisian uprising – the US State Department made its first public comment on events in Tunisia and neighbouring Algeria. A senior official said: We’re certainly watching what’s happening both in Tunisia and Algeria with a great deal of interest. We did call in the Tunisian… Read more
7th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
It is three weeks today since Mohamed Bouazizi lit the flame in Tunisia. How are we to regard the events since then? How should we characterise them? Writing for the Guardian last week, I used the word "uprising", though I can't say I gave it a lot of thought at the time. Based on what I knew then… Read more
5th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
    Where freedom of speech is not allowed, people still find ways to express their message. Students at an engineering institute in Tunis arranged themselves to spell out the words "tunus hurra" (Free Tunisia) on Monday. Schools and colleges in the capital had been surrounded by security forces… Read more
4th January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
As the Tunisian uprising continues on the ground with no sign of abating, the battle over information is intensifying on the internet. Yesterday there were numerous reports of Tunisians' Facebook pages and email accounts being hacked – presumably by the regime – with Yahoo users apparently the most… Read more
3rd January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
Mohamed Bouazizi, the jobless young man who set fire to himselfin Tunisia last month triggering a wave of anti-government demonstrations across the country, died of his injuries last night, according to a report on the nawaat website. Bouazizi, 26, was selling fruit and vegetables in the street to… Read more
2nd January 2011
By: Brian Whitaker
There are calls for a general strike in Tunisia tomorrow (Monday), according to various posts on Twitter. Meanwhile, more and more videos are appearing on the nawaat blog showing protests around the country. I was particularly fascinated by one video showing a small but imaginative protest at an… Read more