Fifteen years ago, a Tunisian fruit seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, despairing at official corruption and police violence, walked to the centre of his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire, and changed the region forever.<\/p>\n
Much of the hope triggered by that act lies in ruins. The revolutions that followed in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria have cost the lives of tens and thousands before, in some cases, giving way to chaos or the return of authoritarianism.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Only Tunisia appeared to fulfil the promise of the \u201cArab Spring\u201d, with voices from around the world championing its democratic success, ignoring economic and political failings through much of its post-revolutionary history that stirred discontent.<\/p>\n Today, many of Tunisia\u2019s post-revolutionary gains have been cast aside in the wake of President Kais Saied\u2019s dramatic power grab in July 2021. Labelled a coup by his opponents, it ushered in a new hardline rule in Tunisia.<\/p>\n Over the following years, as well as temporarily shuttering parliament \u2013 only reopening it in March 2023 \u2013 Saied has rewritten the constitution and overseen a relentless crackdown on critics and opponents.<\/p>\n \u201cThey essentially came for everyone; judges, civil society members, people from all political backgrounds, especially the ones that were talking about unifying an opposition against the coup regime,\u201d Kaouther Ferjani, whose father, 71-year-old Ennahdha leader Said Ferjani, was arrested in February 2023.<\/p>\n In September, Saied said his measures were a continuation of the revolution triggered by Bouzazzi\u2019s self-immolation. Painting himself a man of the people, he railed against nameless \u201clobbyists and their supporters\u201d who thwart the people\u2019s ambitions.<\/p>\n However, while many Tunisians have been cowed into silence by Saied\u2019s crackdown, they have also refused to take part in elections, now little more than a procession for the president.<\/p>\n In 2014, during the country\u2019s first post-revolution presidential election, about 61 percent of the country\u2019s voters turned out to vote.<\/p>\n By last year\u2019s election, turnout had halved.<\/p>\n \u201cKais Saied\u2019s authoritarian rule has definitively buried the hopes and aspirations of the 2011 revolution by systematically crushing fundamental rights and freedoms and putting democratic institutions under his thumb,\u201d Bassam Khawaja, deputy director at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera English.<\/p>\n In the wake of the revolution, many across Tunisia became activists, seeking to involve themselves in forging what felt like a new national identity.<\/p>\n The number of civil society organisations exploded, with thousands forming to lobby against corruption or promote human rights, transitional justice, press freedom and women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n At the same time, political shows competed for space, debating the direction the country\u2019s new identity would take.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an amazing time,\u201d a political analyst who witnessed the revolution and remains in Tunisia said, asking to remain anonymous.\u00a0\u201cAnybody with anything to say was saying it.<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost overnight, we had hundreds of political parties and thousands of civil society organisations. Many of the political parties shifted or merged\u2026 but Tunisia retained an active civil society, as well as retaining freedom of speech all the way up to 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n Threatened by Saied\u2019s Decree 54 of 2022, which criminalised any electronic communication deemed by the government as false, criticism of the ruling elite within the media and even on social networks has largely been muzzled.<\/p>\n \u201cFreedom of speech was one of the few lasting benefits of the revolution,\u201d the analyst continued.<\/p>\n \u201cThe economy failed to pick up, services didn\u2019t really improve, but we had debate and freedom of speech. Now, with Decree 54, as well as commentators just being arrested for whatever reason, it\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2025, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch slammed Tunisia\u2019s crackdown on activists and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).<\/p>\n In a statement before the prosecution of six NGO workers and human rights defenders working for the Tunisian Council for Refugees in late November, Amnesty pointed to the 14 Tunisian and international NGOs that had their activities suspended by court order over the previous four months.<\/p>\n Included were the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, the media platform Nawaat and the Tunis branch of the World Organisation against Torture.<\/p>\n Dozens of political figures from post-revolution governments have also been arrested, with little concern for party affiliation or ideology.<\/p>\n In April 2023, 84-year-old Rached Ghannouchi, leader of what had been Tunisia\u2019s main political bloc, the Ennahdha Party, was arrested on charges of \u201cplotting against state security\u201d.<\/p>\n According to his daughter, Yusra, after a series of subsequent convictions, Ghannouchi currently faces a further 42 years in jail.<\/p>\n Later the same year, Ghannouchi\u2019s principal critic, Abir Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party, was jailed on a variety of charges.<\/p>\n Critics dismiss the charges, saying the criteria for arrest have been the person\u2019s potential to rally opinion against Saied.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not just the case for my father,\u201d Yusra continued, referring to others, such as the leading post-coup opposition figure Jawhar Ben Mubarak.<\/p>\n \u201cOther politicians, judges, journalists, and ordinary citizens \u2026 have been sentenced to very heavy sentences, without any evidence, without any respect for legal procedures, simply because Tunisia has now sadly been taken back to the very same dictatorship against which Tunisians had risen in 2010.\u201d<\/p>\n Ghannouchi and Moussi, along with dozens of former elected lawmakers, remain in jail. The political parties that once vied for power in the country\u2019s parliament are largely absent.<\/p>\n In their place, since Saied\u2019s revised 2022 constitution weakened parliament, is a body that is no longer a threat to the president.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old parliament was incredibly fractious, and did itself few favours,\u201d said Hatem Nafti, essayist and author of Our Friend Kais Saied, a book criticising Tunisia\u2019s new regime. He was referring to the ammunition provided to its detractors by a chaotic and occasionally violent parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it was democratically elected and blocked legislation that its members felt would harm Tunisia.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the new parliament, members feel the need to talk tough and even be rude to ministers,\u201d Nafti continued. \u201cBut it\u2019s really just a performance\u2026 Nearly all the members are there because they agree with Kais Saied.\u201d<\/p>\n Hopes that the justice system might act as a check on Saied have faltered. The president has continued to remodel the judiciary to a design of his own making, including by sacking 57 judges for not delivering verdicts he wanted in 2022.<\/p>\n By the 2024 elections, that effort appeared complete, with the judicial opposition to his rule that remained, in the shape of the administrative court, rendered subservient to his personally appointed electoral authority, and the most serious rivals for the presidency jailed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe judiciary is now almost entirely under the government\u2019s control,\u201c Nafti continued. \u201cEven under [deposed President Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali you had the CSM [Supreme Judicial Council], which oversaw judges\u2019 appointments, promotions, and disciplinary matters.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that only exists on paper, with the minister of justice able to determine precisely what judges go where and what judgements they\u2019ll deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n Citing what he said is the \u201cshameful silence of the international community that once supported the country\u2019s democratic transition\u201d, Khawaja said: \u201dSaied has returned Tunisia to authoritarian rule.\u201d<\/p>\n Fifteen years ago, a Tunisian fruit seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, despairing at official corruption and police violence, walked to the centre of his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire, and changed the region forever. Much of the hope triggered by that act lies in ruins. The revolutions that followed in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Burying the hopes of the revolution<\/h2>\n
![\"BEIJING,](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/getty_692f35528d-1764701522.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
\u2018Plotting against state security\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/AFP__20230221__339P88Q__v2__HighRes__TunisiaPoliticsCourtEnnahdha-1762572960.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2025-07-25T205405Z_611590997_RC2UTFAWFYKK_RTRMADP_3_TUNISIA-POLITICS-PROTESTS-1753511500.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C433&quality=80\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"