Friday 11 February 2011

Troubles in the Arab World

The recent months have been troubled times, starting with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia (due to ill-treatment by police and corruption) on the 18th of December 2010. In late December 2010 and January 2011, the troubles spread to Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Morocco, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Oman, Bahrain, Djibouti and Mauritania, encouraged by the success of the Tunisian protest marches and riots: the president of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on the 14th of January after 23 years in power. Also set off by the events in Tunisia was a wave of self-immolations that caused the death of about 7 and the injury of at least 10 more. So far, the success as well as the number of protesters has varied between the troubled nations:
Algeria: the first protests in Algiers on the 29th of December ended with 3 deaths, 800 wounded and 1100 arrested. A month later (29th of January) 10 000 people marched in Bejaia. It was announced on the 3rd of February that the state of emergency (which has been enforced since 1992) will be lifted.
Egypt: The protests in Egypt have, at the peak, on Friday the 4th of February, involved at least a million people while hundreds of thousands have been seen on other days. In clashes with law enforcement and pro-government people, there have been 297 deaths, 3000 injured and 1000 arrested. The protests continue as the people demand the resignation of the president, Hosni Mubarak.
Jordan: In Jordan, the protests have resulted in the prime minister and his government were canned by King Abdullah. There were no reported casualties and a new government was formed without much trouble.
Yemen: The president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh (in power for 30 years) has announced that he will not run for office in the elections of 2013 in response to the tens of thousands that gathered in Sana'a to demand the resignation of the president. Aside from a number of arrests the marches have been without incident.

Situation:

So far there have been a total of over 500 deaths (including self-immolations), over 4000 wounded, and over 2000 arrested

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