The uprisings in Tunisia resulted in what is considered the only successful revolution from the Arab Uprisings. Today, Tunisia is a democracy, and receives a rating of free on Freedom House.
Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was elected in Tunisia in 1987 and stayed in power until he was ousted in 2011. At first, he promised democratic progress for Tunisia and began to loosen restrictions on the press. Freedom House considered the environment in Tunisia to be partly free during ben Ali’s first term in office (Al Jazeera). However, when he was reelected in 1994, the media environment took a turn for the worse. There was an abolishment of term limits, corruption and widespread censorship.
Before 2011, the media landscape was widely censored. The government blocked websites and arrested many journalists. There were some private media outlets, however those were owned by friends of ben Ali and his family. The media outlets that were independently owned practiced self-censorship out of fear of arrest or closure of their company. Immediately before the 2011 protests, online blogs developed, which discussed and sometimes criticized ben Ali’s regime. The government blocked those blogs, in addition to other websites such as Freedom House, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders (Al Jazeera).
In December 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire due his anger with the corruption of ben Ali’s regime. He was educated, however had to sell fruit to make a living, and received constant harassment by government officials. Bouazizi’s self-immolation led to massive protests across Tunisia, which then spread to the rest of the Arab world. Videos of Bouazizi on fire spread across many social media platforms. The government tried to hack into blogs, shut down websites and arrest journalists to try to stop the continuation of the protests. As the protests continued, more police violence occurred, more censorship over the media, and there were more arrests. Commentators called the protests in Tunisia a media led revolution (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace).
Protests against ben Ali and the Tunisian government persisted for one month, and eventually on January 14, 2011, ben Ali and his family fled to Saudi Arabia (BBC). After the old regime was removed, the media environment improved a lot. By 2013, Freedom House declared Tunisia’s media environment to be partly free (Freedom House). While the media environment has improved drastically since the fall of ben Ali, there are still new laws being implemented that are ambiguous to journalists. For example, the anti-terrorism law is unclear and journalists could get charged easily (Al Jazeera).
Tunisia’s media environment has fluctuated since ben Ali left Tunisia. Another person lit himself on fire, and after that event, protests ensued again. During those protests, journalists were being harassed and some websites were blocked (Al Jazeera). Censorship has been reduced, however bloggers are still being arrested for attacking Tunisia’s common good.
Media in the Middle East 