1. TUNISIA
THE INTERNET: CATALYSING A LEADERLESS REVOLUTION
Arab World Internet Institute Ben Ali was the darling of the Western countries
Khaled Koubaa and considered the trusted leader who would main-
www.aw2i.org tain Tunisia’s pro-Western policies and keep the
country away from the extremism found in its larger
neighbours: Libya and Algeria.
Introduction But the reality was different, and Ben Ali began
consolidating his rule by restraining the opposition,
Since December 2010 Tunisia has experienced an
and taking control of the media and armed forces.
unprecedented and spontaneous wave of protests,
In 1999 he organised Tunisia’s first multi-candidate
fuelled by a persistent lack of freedom of expres-
presidential election and won it with 99.44% of the
sion, anger over governance corruption issues, and
vote. A constitutional referendum in 2002 amended
mounting frustration over unemployment and so-
the upper age limit for a presidential candidate to
cial exclusion. These countrywide protests led to
75 years of age, to give him the ability to run for a
the toppling of the regime and the ousting of Tuni-
fifth term in 2009. He won with 89% of the vote.
sia’s second president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on
Under his regime, Tunisia became known as
14 January 2011 after 23 years in power. His depar-
one of the most restrictive countries with a poor
ture into exile in Saudi Arabia has not calmed the
human rights record, including the imprisonment
violence as demonstrations and resistance continue
of opinion leaders, the surveillance of websites,
on the streets, and on social networks. The political
emails and other internet activities, the restriction
outlook has been positively impacted by the revo-
of freedom of association, and the harassment and
lution. An interim president and government have
intimidation of cyber activists.
been established, different high commissions re-
sponsible for protecting the revolution appointed The internet as a catalyst to change…
and various reforms initiated.
One of the clearest signs of social resistance in Tuni-
This social resistance was buoyed by pictures
sia was the revolt in Redeyef in 2008, in the mining
posted on Facebook, flashed on Twitter and pub-
area of Gafsa in the centre of the country. This was
lished on blogs and other online forums. This
brutally crushed by police, and no news went out
gave the revolution different names: the “Internet
other than a few videos published online – on the
Revolution”, “Twitter Revolution” or “Jasmine Revo-
video platform YouTube, which had already been
lution”; but regardless of the name, Tunisian youth
blocked by authorities. A small number of activists
demonstrated the important and critical role that
and journalists tried to unveil what happened but
the internet and social media play in struggles for
they were imprisoned and harassed by Ben Ali’s
freedom and for human rights today.
regime.
Policy and political background Cyber activists had already been hard hit by
the death in 2005 of Zouhair Yahyaoui, one of the
Tunisia has an impressive political history: slavery
first people to denounce human rights violations
was abolished in 1848, a Constitution established
on his website TuneZine. Moreover, the release of
in 1861, polygamy abolished in 1956, abortion legal-
WikiLeaks cables had made citizens more aware of
ised in 1973, a Human Rights League established in
the corruption of the regime, in particularly Ben Ali’s
1977. Of the Arab countries, these qualified her as
family.
the one nearest to democracy.
Other incidents also showed signs of brewing
The first president, Habib Bourguiba, went to
social unrest: the death of Abdesselem Trimeche in
great lengths to build the country by investing in ed-
April 2010 in Monastir, and Chamseddine El Hani in
ucation and health, but without being able to deepen
November 2010 in Metlaoui – both immolated them-
democracy in the country. On 7 November 1987, Zine
selves. Neither case was covered by the media,
El Abidine Ben Ali, just nominated prime minister,
other than some information and videos posted on
ousted Bourguiba in a bloodless coup, while promis-
social websites. Similarly, clashes between police
ing that there would be “no presidency for life”.
TUNISIA / 249

2. and protesters in the southern Tunisian region of websites covering the street protests were blocked
Ben Guerdane in August 2010 were lightly reported in Tunisia. One report placed your country, along with
by the media. Saudi Arabia, as the worst in the region regarding In-
On the morning of 17 December, Mohamed ternet censorship. A 2009 CPJ study found Tunisia to
Bouazizi, a 26-year-old vegetable trader, immolated be one of the 10 worst countries worldwide to be a
himself after a municipal inspector tried to confis- blogger, in part for the same reasons.”1
cate his merchandise. That afternoon, Ali Bouazizi The Ben Ali regime had also begun to attack
– a cousin of Mohamed Bouazizi – uploaded a video activists’ Facebook and email accounts. A hidden
on Facebook of the first protest, just in front of the script injected into popular site login pages had
Sidi Bouzid governorate, a few metres from the been discovered by cyber activists,2 and the Elec-
place where his cousin had immolated himself. tronic Frontier Foundation advised Tunisians to use
The same day Al Jazeera news downloaded the HTTPS to log in to their accounts, allowing informa-
video of the protest from Facebook and broadcasted tion to be encrypted.3
it on Al Jazeera Mubasher. Unfortunately, many online journalists and
Unlike the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009, Tu- activists reported that their accounts had been de-
nisian activists used social media tools effectively leted or compromised. Ben Ali’s cyber militia used
by capturing and uploading videos on Facebook the stolen passwords to delete Facebook groups,
and sharing them on Twitter – but the heart of the pages, videos and accounts.4
protests lay in the organised and violent protests in For those reasons “Anonymous” – an interna-
different towns in the country. tional internet activism group – attacked different
Unlike Mubarak, who shut down the internet for official Tunisian websites, including those of the
five days in Egypt, Ben Ali was counting on his leg- presidency and the government, using distributed
endary oppressive structure and the self-censorship denial of service (DDoS) attacks.5
from his citizens that he was used to dealing with. El Général, a Tunisian rap singer originally
This structure was – unfortunately for him – not able from Sfax in southeastern Tunisia, had been ar-
or prepared to respond to the rapid dissemination rested after publishing a rap song online criticising
of information using new social media. President Ben Ali. His video was to become very
Cyber activists were the first on the scene, docu- popular among young Tunisians and widely circu-
menting and sharing news of the protests; but by lated online. Other activists were arrested by police
the first week of January, millions of internet users in different towns and their computers seized.6
became more and more active, reacting to what was Ben Ali gave three speeches, calling the pro-
happening each day and night in Kasserine, Thala, tests and riots “terrorist acts”. In his last speech he
Menzel and Bouzaian; and to the very repressive asked for pardon by declaring his intention not to
police reaction that they witnessed. run as a candidate for a new term in the 2014 elec-
Tunisian citizens were also able to follow infor- tions, and promising to give freedom to the media
mation reported by international TV channels (Al and put an end to censorship of the internet.
Jazeera, France 24, Al Arabiya, etc.), which were On the night of 13 January, just after this last
broadcasting videos and information reported by speech, the Ben Ali regime tried to play catch-up
normal citizens and activists on the ground. The and organise pro-Ben Ali riots using paid militia
state-owned TV7 – named after 7 November 1987 from his political party RCD. At the same time, activ-
when Ben Ali secured power through his putsch – ists were intelligent enough to continue resistance
continued to ignore the growing social uprising. on social media sites to spread the call for a big
Despite the censorship of almost all video and demonstration to be organised the next day.
image-sharing platforms (e.g. YouTube, Dailymotion, The protests by then had gained vocal inter-
Vimeo, Flickr), Tunisian protesters learned quickly national support. United States Secretary of State
how to use proxies, anonymisers and circumvention
tools to share information on platforms like Facebook 1 www.cpj.org/2011/01/tunisia-must-end-censorship-on-coverage-
and Twitter – the hashtags #bouazizi and #sidibouzid of-unrest.php
reached a high-level trend worldwide. 2 www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201101/6651/Tunisian-
government-harvesting-usernames-and-passwords
The Tunisian authorities meanwhile tried every 3 www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-calls-immediate-action-
means possible to thwart the flow of information, defend-tunisian
which pushed the New York-based Committee to 4 www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/tunisia/2
Protect Journalists to send an open letter to Ben Ali 5 english.aljazeera.net/indepth/
features/2011/01/20111614145839362.html
stating: “Regional and international media have re- 6 en.rsf.org/tunisia-wave-of-arrests-of-bloggers-
ported that numerous local and international news and-07-01-2011,39238.html
250 / Global Information Society Watch

3. Hillary Clinton declared in a speech during a meet- need help!” – which helped others to warn the army
ing in Qatar on 13 January: “There’s no problem with about his situation, a move which saved him.10
people peacefully demonstrating and protesting. Protesters, from all parts of the country, re-
It’s going on in Tunisia right now. We support peace- mained in the Kasbah in Tunis in front of the prime
ful protest and the right of assembly.”7 minister’s offices, now to demand that the transi-
The 14 January demonstrations came to a head tional government resign. The Kasbah sit-in (the
as thousands of people gathered outside the Min- first and second)11 was encouraged and followed by
istry of Interior, a symbol of the Ben Ali regime’s social media. Different groups and pages on Face-
repression. Beginning in the afternoon, while Tu- book were dedicated to Kasbah. Even a dedicated
nisian TV7 announced a state of emergency “to committee to coordinate citizen media was created
protect the Tunisian people and their properties,” by activist participants in the sit-ins to report about
bloggers and cyber activists reported that a special their long days and difficult weather conditions.
security force had arrested members of the Trabelsi After this sit-in, Mohamed Ghannouchi an-
family – the family of Ben Ali’s wife – at an airport. nounced his resignation as prime minister of the
Later, TV7 declared that a major announcement to interim government, and the interim president ap-
the Tunisian people was to be made soon. Bloggers pointed Beji Caid el Sebsi in his place. The interim
began to report movements of the presidential air- president then announced that an election would
plane and spoke about a coup. be held for a Constituent Assembly.
At the end of the day, Tunisian Prime Minister
Mohamed Ghannouchi declared in an official state- Conclusions
ment that Ben Ali had stepped down, and that he Evgeny Morozov, a visiting scholar at Stanford and
had taken over as interim president as allowed by a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation,
Article 56 of the Tunisian Constitution. asked the following question in his article “First
Tunisia began writing a new wave of liberty and thoughts on Tunisia and the role of the Internet
tweets stated: “Every Arab leader is watching Tuni- about the uprising”: “Would this revolution have
sia in fear. Every Arab citizen is watching Tunisia in happened if there were no Facebook and Twitter?”
hope and solidarity.”8 And his answer was “Yes.”12
Despite the happiness of Tunisians after this On the other hand, in an official statement
announcement, the first reaction of cyber activists about the events in Tunisia, Twitter representative
was to continue their hard work. Straight away they Sean Garrett stated: “We might be able to provide
called for Ghannouchi to step down and appoint thoughtful analysis after all the events of Tunisia
Foued Mebazaa, the president of the Chamber of have unfolded. But, right now, along with the rest of
Deputies, as interim president, drawing on Article the world, we sit back and watch in awe at how peo-
57 and not 569 of the Constitution. They felt that Ar- ple are using Twitter and other platforms to provide
ticle 56 might give Ben Ali the opportunity to return on-the-ground perspective at what might become a
to Tunisia as president if he wanted to. By 15 Janu- truly historic moment.”13
ary Mebazaa took power as interim president and The answer from Tunisian activists to Moro-
appointed Ghannouchi as interim prime minister. zov’s question would be, for sure: “No.” This is
Social mobilisation through social media tools mainly because, as explained above, without so-
to support civil resistance against attacks from the cial media tools other traditional media such as Al
militia continued following Ben Ali’s departure. The Jazeera would not have been able to report on what
hashtag #situation reported what happened in each happened. International organisations and other
city, warning of sniper locations, asking for blood countries would not have been able to understand
donations, and even saving lives. A seventeen- what happened and would not have put more pres-
year-old Tunisian cyber activist tweeted using his sure on the Ben Ali regime.
account @BulletSkan: “The army is not respond-
ing to calls! There are armed men in our yard! We
7 www.enduringamerica.com/home/2011/1/13/tunisia-liveblog-
concession-or-confrontation.html 10 videos.tf1.fr/infos/lci-est-a-vous/tunisie-twitter-a-sauve-ma-
8 techcrunch.com/2011/01/16/tunisia-2 vie-6226394.html
9 Article 56 delegates power to the prime minister in case of 11 There were two Kasbah sit-ins, both between mid-January and the
temporary disability of the president. In this case the president end of February.
may return. Article 57 gives power to the president of the Chamber 12 neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/14/first_thoughts_on_
of Deputies after an absolute disability of the president and does tunisia_and_the_role_of_the_internet
not allow the president back to office. 13 techcrunch.com/2011/01/14/tunisia
TUNISIA / 251

4. The internet and social media deserve full credit Action steps
in helping citizens to design their future and make Today Tunisia has a clear chance to rebuild a new
it happen. They catalysed and facilitated the revolu- country. Using the internet, citizens are more likely
tion and anarchy that were organised but effectively to lead this process. Cyber activists should pay at-
leaderless. tention to the need for:
Protests were in fact spontaneous and citizen-
led – not supported by a central decision-making A national broadband plan that ensures access
process. In this sense the internet helped to create for all in the country. This will help the Tunisian
a “user-generated” revolution, where everyone was economy become more competitive by creating
participating in a different way in a countrywide jobs and supporting entrepreneurship. Social
revolutionary process. Even after 14 January and af- solutions can be enabled by access to faster
ter the politicians took over the process of change, internet.
social media still supported the resistance with the A more open and solid internet governance
aim of defining the “new” Tunisia. system is needed, and a decentralised in-
frastructure that can guarantee freedom of
expression. An open and more accountable gov-
ernment is needed. !
252 / Global Information Society Watch