Portal:Arab Spring
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
The Arab Spring began in late 2010 in response to oppressive regimes and a low standard of living, beginning with protests in Tunisia (Noueihed, 2011; Maleki, 2011). In the news, social media have been heralded as the driving force behind the swift spread of revolution throughout the world, as new protests appear in response to success stories shared from those taking place in other countries (see Howard, 2011). In many countries, the governments have also recognized the importance of social media for organizing and have shut down certain sites or blocked Internet service entirely, especially in the times preceding a major rally (see The Telegraph, 2011). Governments have also scrutinized or suppressed discussion in those forums through accusing content creators of unrelated crimes or shutting down communication on specific sites or groups, such as through Facebook (Solomon, 2011; Seyid, 2011).
The effects of the Tunisian Revolution spread strongly to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the regime was toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām ("the people want to bring down the regime").
Selected general articles
The Libyan flag used between 1951 and 1969 was used by protesters as an opposition flag. It was readopted as the national flag after the rebels' victory.
During the early stages of the Libyan Civil War of 2011, the Gaddafi regime was still in power: but there was widespread withdrawal of support from that regime by influential persons and organisations within the country. Among those who no longer supported the regime, the main concern they expressed was what they regarded as its use of excessive force against peaceful protestors. There were many resignations by ministers of the governing council and other senior officials, diplomats posted abroad, and senior military officers. Islamic clerics, tribal leaders, and members of the former royal family expressed their opposition, while the two leading Libyan oil companies also withdrew support for the regime. Read more...
Mustafa Abdul-Jelil (Arabic: مصطفى عبد الجليل, also transcribed Abdul Jalil, Abd-al-Jalil, Abdel-Jalil, Abdeljalil or Abdu Al Jeleil) (born 1952) is a Libyan politician who was the Chairman of the National Transitional Council from 5 March 2011 until its dissolution on 8 August 2012. This position meant he was de facto head of state during a transitional period after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's government in the Libyan Civil War, and until the handover of power to the General National Congress.
Before the war, Abdul-Jelil served as Minister of Justice (officially, the Secretary of the General People's Committee of Justice) under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. He was noted in some news media[who?] for his stance against various human rights violations in Libya, although Diana West accused him of intransigence during the Bulgarian nurses affair. Read more...- The Ennahdha Party (Arabic: حزب حركة النهضة Hizbu Ḥarakatu n-Nahḍah; French: Mouvement Ennahdha), also known as Renaissance Party or simply Ennahdha, is a Muslim democratic political party in Tunisia. Founded as "The Movement of Islamic Tendency" in 1981, Ennahdha was inspired by the Iranian revolution, and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, but has also been called "the mildest and most democratic Islamist party in history". Rached Ghannouchi was the movement's founder and remains its president.
In the wake of the 2011 Tunisian revolution and collapse of the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Ennahdha Movement Party was formed, and in the 2011 Tunisian Constituent Assembly election, (the first free election in the country's history),
won a plurality of 37% of the popular vote and formed a government. Uproar in the traditionally secular country over "Islamization" and assassinations of two secular politicians however, led to the 2013–14 Tunisian political crisis, and the party stepped down
following the implementation of a new constitution in January 2014. The party came in second with 27.79% of the vote, in the 2014 Tunisian parliamentary election, forming a coalition government with the largest secular party, but did not offer or endorse a candidate in the November 2014 presidential election. Read more...
The National Liberation Army (Arabic: جيش التحرير الوطني الليبي jaysh al-taḥrīr al-waṭanī al-lībī), formerly known as the Free Libyan Army, was a Libyan military organisation affiliated with the National Transitional Council, which was constituted during the Libyan Civil War by defected military members and civilian volunteers, in order to engage in battle against both remaining members of the Libyan Armed Forces and paramilitia loyal to the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. It had prepared for some time in portions of Eastern Libya controlled by the anti-Gaddafi forces for eventual full-on combat in Western Libya against pro-Gaddafi militants, training many men before beginning to go on the offensive. They have battled for control of Benghazi, Misrata, Brega, Ajdabiya, Zawiya and Ra's Lanuf as well as several towns in the Nafusa Mountains. They finally began the Battle for Tripoli in August 2011 when they attacked from the west of the city, as well as fomenting an internal uprising on 20 August.
There were claims that there were 8,000 soldiers in Benghazi equipped with a substantial number of weapons captured from abandoned Libyan army depots, including AK-47 and FN FAL rifles, RPGs, SPGs, anti-aircraft guns and several tanks. Read more...
The Moroccan protests are a series of demonstrations across Morocco which occurred from 20 February 2011 to the spring of 2012. They were inspired by other protests in the region. The protests were organized by the 20 February Movement. Read more...- The Libyan Crisis refers to the ongoing conflicts in Libya, beginning with the Arab Spring protests of 2011, which led to a civil war, foreign military intervention, and the ousting and death of Muammar Gaddafi. The civil war's aftermath and proliferation of armed groups led to violence and instability across the country, which erupted into renewed civil war in 2014. The ongoing crisis in Libya has so far resulted in tens of thousands of casualties since the onset of violence in early 2011. During both civil wars, the output of Libya's economically crucial oil industry collapsed to a small fraction of its usual level, with most facilities blockaded or damaged by rival groups, despite having the largest oil reserves of any African country. U.S. President Barack Obama stated on 11 April 2016 that not preparing for a post-Gaddafi Libya was probably the "worst mistake" of his presidency. Read more...
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, GColIH (
pronunciation (help·info); Arabic: عبد العزيز بوتفليقة ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Būtaflīqa [ʕaːbd lʕziz butfliqa]; born 2 March 1937) is an Algerian politician who has been the fifth President of Algeria since 1999. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1963 to 1979. As President, he presided over the end of the bloody Algerian Civil War in 2002, and he ended emergency rule in February 2011 amidst regional unrest. He is former president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1974.
In November 2012, he surpassed Houari Boumédiène as the longest-serving president of Algeria. Read more...
Hamadi Jebali (Arabic: حمادي الجبالي, Ḥammādī al-Jibālī; born 12 January 1949) is a Tunisian engineer, Islamist politician and journalist who was Prime Minister of Tunisia from December 2011 to March 2013. He was the Secretary-General of the Ennahda Movement, a moderate Islamist party in Tunisia, until he left his party in December 2014 in the course of the Tunisian presidential election, 2014. Read more...
Locator map of the Western Sahara with zones of de facto control
The 2011 Western Saharan protests began on 25 February 2011 as a reaction to the failure of police to prevent anti-Sahrawi looting in the city of Dakhla, Western Sahara, and blossomed into protests across the territory. They were related to the Gdeim Izik protest camp in Western Sahara established the previous fall, which had resulted in violence between Sahrawi activists and Moroccan security forces and supporters. The protests also purportedly drew inspiration from the Arab Spring and successful revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, though according to some commentators, the Arab Spring proper did not reach Western Sahara.
No significant protests were reported beyond May 2011, though international media coverage of Western Sahara is incomplete at best. There is renewed calls for peaceful protests from the Polisario Front. Read more...- The National Salvation Front (also known as the National Front for Salvation of the Revolution or the National Rescue Front, Arabic: جبهة الإنقاذ الوطني) is an alliance of Egyptian political parties, formed to defeat Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's 22 November 2012 constitutional declaration. The National Front for Salvation of the Revolution has more than 35 groups involved overall. Observers are concerned that the NSF will not be able to become a coherent political force because the different parties agree on opposing Morsi, but their views on other subjects diverge.
The front issued three demands to Morsi during the 2012 Egyptian protests. The demands were: that the constitutional declaration be rescinded, that the referendum be called off, and that a new constituent assembly be formed. Read more...
Anna Hazare's hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, on the second day of his fast
The Indian anti-corruption movement, commencing in 2011, was a series of demonstrations and protests across India intended to establish strong legislation and enforcement against perceived endemic political corruption. The movement was named among the "Top 10 News Stories of 2011" by Time magazine.
The movement gained momentum from 5 April 2011, when anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare began a hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. The chief legislative aim of the movement was to alleviate corruption in the Indian government through introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill. Another aim, spearheaded by Ramdev, was the repatriation of black money from Swiss and other foreign banks. Read more...
The Occupy movement was an international progressive, socio-political movement against social and economic inequality and the lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and economic justice and new forms of democracy. The movement had many different scopes; local groups often had different focuses, but among the movement's prime concerns were how large corporations (and the global financial system) control the world in a way that disproportionately benefited a minority, undermined democracy, and was unstable. "Occupy" formed part of what Manfred Steger called the "global justice movement".
The first Occupy protest to receive widespread attention, Occupy Wall Street in New York City's Zuccotti Park, began on 17 September 2011. By 9 October, Occupy protests had taken place or were ongoing in over 951 cities across 82 countries, and in over 600 communities in the United States. Although most active in the United States, by October 2012 there had been Occupy protests and occupations in dozens of other countries across every inhabited continent. For the first month, overt police repression remained minimal, but this began to change by 25 October 2011 when police first attempted to forcibly remove Occupy Oakland. By the end of 2011, authorities had cleared most of the major camps, with the last remaining high-profile sites – in Washington, D.C. and in London – evicted by February 2012. Read more...
The 2011 Lebanese protests, also known as the Intifada of Dignity or Uprising of Dignity were seen as influenced by the Arab Spring. The main protests focused on calls for political reform especially against confessionalism in Lebanon. The protests initiated in early 2011, and dimmed by the end of the year. In another aspect of the Arab Spring, Lebanese pro and anti-Assad factions descended into sectarian violence, which culminated in May–June 2012. Read more...
Mohamed Hussein Tantawy Soliman (Arabic: محمد حسين طنطاوى سليمان, Egyptian Arabic: [mæˈħæmmæd ħeˈseːn tˤɑnˈtˤɑːwi seleˈmæːn]; born 31 October 1935) is an Egyptian field marshal and former politician. He was the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and, as Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, was the de facto head of state from the ousting of Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011 to the inauguration of Mohamed Morsi as President of Egypt on 30 June 2012. Tantawy served in the government as Minister of Defence and Military Production from 1991 until Morsi ordered Tantawy to retire on 12 August 2012. Read more...
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2016 was unanimously adopted on 27 October 2011. Recognizing the "positive developments" in Libya after the Libyan Civil War and the death of Muammar Gaddafi, the resolution set a date of termination for the provisions of Security Council Resolution 1973 which allowed states to undertake "all necessary measures" to protect civilians and which formed the legal basis for military intervention by a number of foreign states. The termination date was set at 23:59, Libyan local time on 31 October 2011. The no-fly zone created with Resolution 1973 was also lifted on that date.
The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, William Hague, called the resolution a "milestone towards a peaceful, democratic future for Libya". The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said history would regard the intervention as "a proud chapter in the Security Council's experience". Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said "we expect the NATO council to act in accordance with this decision". Read more...- The international reactions to the death of Muammar Gaddafi concern the responses of foreign governments and supranational organisations to the killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the Battle of Sirte, the last major engagement of the Libyan Civil War, on 20 October 2011. Read more...
- The international reactions to the Bahraini uprising of 2011 include responses by supranational organisations, non-governmental organisations, media organisations, and both the governments and civil populaces, like of fellow sovereign states to the protests and uprising in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. The small island nation's territorial position in the Persian Gulf not only makes it a key contending regional power but also determines its geostrategic position as a buffer between the Arab World and Iran. Hence, the overlap in trolls and geostrategic implications aid in explaining international responses to the uprising in Bahrain. Accordingly, as a proxy state between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Bahrain's domestic politics is both wittingly and unavoidably shaped by regional forces and variables that determine the country's response to internal and external pressures. Read more...
Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman (Arabic: توكل عبد السلام خالد كرمان Tawakkul 'Abd us-Salām Khalid Karmān; also Romanized Tawakul, Tawakel) (born 7 February 1979) is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist. She leads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005. She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that is part of the Arab Spring uprisings. She has been called the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution" by Yemenis. She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the second youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date.
Karman gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She organized weekly protests after May 2007 expanding the issues for reform. She redirected the Yemeni protests to support the "Jasmine Revolution," as she calls the Arab Spring, after the Tunisian people overthrew the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. She has been a vocal opponent who has called for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime. Read more...
Foreign fighters have fought on all four sides of the Syrian Civil War, as well both sides of the Iraqi Civil War. The conflicts are sectarian, with foreign Sunnis fighting for the Syrian opposition and the Islamic State, foreign Shias fighting for the Syrian government, and foreign leftists fighting for the People's Protection Units.
Many foreign nationals have fought in the conflicts and some of them have died. Fighters include those from the Gulf Arab states, Tunisia (following its own Tunisian revolution), Libya (following the Libyan Civil War), China, other Arab states, Russia, including the North Caucasus region, and Western countries.Estimates of the total number of foreign Sunnis who have fought for the Syrian rebels over the course of the conflict range from 5,000 to over 10,000, while foreign Shia fighters number around 10,000 or less in 2013. Over 600 foreign fighters were killed in the first half of 2013 alone. The Soufan Group reported on 15 October 2016 that there has been "a significant increase in the number of foreign fighters travelling to Syria" since 2014. The U.S. State Department reported on 2 June 2016 that their "intelligence community" estimates that possibly "in excess of 40,000 total foreign fighters have gone to the conflict [in Syria] and from over 100 countries" while six months prior, the Russian Defense Ministry estimated that there were about "25-30,000 foreign terrorist mercenaries are fighting for ISIL" alone. In addition to Sunni foreign fighters, Shia fighters from several countries have joined pro-government militias in Syria, leftists have joined Kurdish fighting forces, and private military contractors recruit globally. Read more...
Marouf Suleiman al-Bakhit (Arabic: معروف البخيت; born 1947) was a Jordanian politician and two-time Prime Minister. He first served as Prime Minister from 27 November 2005 until 25 November 2007 and then again from 9 February 2011 to 17 October 2011. Bakhit also held the position of Jordanian ambassador to Israel and the national security chief. Appointed as Prime Minister by King Abdullah II less than three weeks after the 2005 Amman bombings, Bakhit's main priorities were to maintain security and stability in Jordan. He was reappointed as Prime Minister by the King on 1 February 2011, following weeks of protests.
He resigned from his post on 17 October 2011, and was succeeded by Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh on 24 October. Read more...- Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (Arabic: سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي; born 25 June 1972) is a Libyan political figure. He is the second son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (who was overthrown and killed in 2011) and his second wife Safia Farkash. Gaddafi was awarded a PhD from the London School of Economics.
He was a part of his father's inner circle, performing public relations and diplomatic roles on his behalf. He publicly turned down his father's offer of the country's second highest post and held no official government position. According to American State Department officials in Tripoli, during his father's reign, he was the second most widely recognized person in Libya, being at times the "de facto" Prime Minister, and was mentioned as a possible successor, though he rejected this. An arrest warrant was issued for him by the International Criminal Court for charges of crimes against humanity against the Libyan people, for torturing and killing civilians, a charge he denied. Read more...
Up until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was unique in being the only country in the world where women were forbidden to drive motor vehicles. The women to drive movement (Arabic: قيادة المرأة في السعودية qiyāda al-imarʾa fī as-Suʿūdiyya) is a campaign by Saudi women, who have more rights denied to them by the regime than men, for the right to drive motor vehicles on public roads. Dozens of women drove in Riyadh in 1990 and were arrested and had their passports confiscated. In 2007, Wajeha al-Huwaider and other women petitioned King Abdullah for women's right to drive, and a film of al-Huwaider driving on International Women's Day 2008 attracted international media attention.
In 2011, the Arab Spring motivated some women, including al-Huwaider and Manal al-Sharif, to organise a more intensive driving campaign, and about seventy cases of women driving were documented from 17 June to late June. In late September, Shaima Jastania was sentenced to ten lashes for driving in Jeddah, although the sentence was later overturned. Two years later, another campaign to defy the ban targeted 26 October 2013 as the date for women to start driving. Three days before, in a "rare and explicit restating of the ban", an Interior Ministry spokesman warned that "women in Saudi are banned from driving and laws will be applied against violators and those who demonstrate support." Interior Ministry employees warned leaders of the campaign individually not to drive on 26 October, and in the Saudi capital police road blocks were set up to check for women drivers. Read more...- The 2011–2012 Kurdish protests in Turkey are ongoing protests in Turkey, led by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), against restrictions of Kurdish rights by of the country's Kurdish minority's rights. Although they are the latest in a long series of protest actions by Kurds in Turkey, they are strongly influenced by the concurrent popular protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and the Turkish publication Hürriyet Daily News has suggested that the popularly dubbed "Arab Spring" that has seen revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia may lead to a "Kurdish Summer" in the northern reaches of the Middle East. Protesters have taken to the streets both in İstanbul and in southeast Turkey, with some demonstrations also reported as far west in Anatolia as İzmir.
From 24 March and 10 May, a total of 2 protesters were killed, 308 injured and 2,506 detained by Turkish authorities. Read more...
Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi (‘Abdrabbuh Manṣūr Hādī; Arabic: عبدربه منصور هادي Yemeni pronunciation: [ˈʕæbdˈrɑb.bu mænˈsˤuːr ˈhæːdi]; born 1 September 1945) is a Yemeni politician and former Field Marshal of the Yemeni Armed Forces. He has been the President of Yemen since 27 February 2012, and was Vice President from 1994 to 2012.
Between 4 June and 23 September 2011, Hadi was the acting President of Yemen while Ali Abdullah Saleh was undergoing medical treatment in Saudi Arabia following an attack on the presidential palace during the 2011 Yemeni uprising. On 23 November, he became Acting President again, after Saleh moved into a non-active role pending the presidential election "in return for immunity from prosecution". Hadi was "expected to form a national unity government and also call for early presidential elections within 90 days" while Saleh continued to serve as President in name only.
Mansour Hadi was chosen as a president for a two-year transitional period on February 21, 2012, in an election in which he was the only candidate. His mandate was extended for another year in January 2014. However, he remained in power after the expiration of his mandate. Read more...- The Egyptian Crisis began with the Egyptian revolution of 2011, when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in an ideologically and socially diverse mass protest movement that ultimately forced longtime president Hosni Mubarak from office. A protracted political crisis ensued, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces taking control of the country until a series of popular elections brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power. However, disputes between elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and secularists continued until the anti-government protests in June 2013 that lead to the overthrow of Morsi in 2013, in what has been variably described as a coup d'état or as an ending to the second revolution, or both. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who announced the overthrow of Morsi, then became the leader of Egypt the following year, winning election to the presidency in a landslide victory described by EU observers as free but not necessarily fair. Nonetheless, Sisi's election was widely recognized, and the political situation has largely stabilized since he officially took power; however, some protests have continued despite a government crackdown. The crisis has also spawned an ongoing insurgency led by Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in the Sinai Peninsula, which became increasingly intertwined with the regional conflict against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant later in 2014. Read more...
National Association for Change (Arabic: الجمعية الوطنية للتغيير) is a loose grouping of the various Egyptian of all political affiliations and religion, men and women, including representatives of civil society and young people aims to change Egypt. There was general agreement on the need to unite all the voices calling for change within a National Assembly. Mohamed ElBaradei is in-charge of the National Association for Change. The movement aims for general reforms in the political scene and achieving some of those procedures and guarantees necessitates the amendment of articles 76, 77, and 88 of the constitution as soon as possible. Worth mentioning is that the banned political group the Muslim Brotherhood were represented by one of their key figures who attended the meeting however their stand in accepting a non-member of their group as a candidate is yet unclear. It is also unknown whether Amr Moussa the head of the Arab League who met with Elbaradei a day earlier will be part of the new movement. The goal of the group is to bring about political reform based on democracy and social justice. Read more...
Demonstrators in Taksim Square, 15 June 2013
A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at the violent eviction of a sit-in at the park protesting the plan. Subsequently, supporting protests and strikes took place across Turkey, protesting a wide range of concerns at the core of which were issues of freedom of the press, of expression, assembly, and the government's encroachment on Turkey's secularism. With no centralised leadership beyond the small assembly that organized the original environmental protest, the protests have been compared to the Occupy movement and the May 1968 events. Social media played a key part in the protests, not least because much of the Turkish media downplayed the protests, particularly in the early stages. Three and a half million people (out of Turkey's population of 80 million) are estimated to have taken an active part in almost 5,000 demonstrations across Turkey connected with the original Gezi Park protest. Eleven people were killed and more than 8,000 were injured, many critically.
The sit-in at Taksim Gezi Park was restored after police withdrew from Taksim Square on 1 June, and developed into a protest camp, with thousands of protesters in tents, organising a library, medical center, food distribution, and their own media. After the Gezi Park camp was cleared by riot police on 15 June, protesters began to meet in other parks all around Turkey and organised public forums to discuss ways forward for the protests. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan dismissed the protesters as "a few looters" on 2 June. Police suppressed the protests with tear gas and water cannons. In addition to the 11 deaths and over 8,000 injuries, more than 3,000 arrests were made. Excessive use of force by police and the overall absence of government dialogue with the protesters was criticized by some foreign countries and international organisations. Read more...- There have been numerous domestic responses to the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Opposition parties, activists and religious bodies have been staunchly demanding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, with the exception of fearful Christian authorities, who called for staying away from the protests (although Christian individuals have taken part). The government has made ongoing attempts at media censorship, including briefly shutting down nearly all Internet traffic.
Mubarak has made some initial changes to quell dissent, including dissolving his government, and appointing military figure and former head of Egypt's intelligence service Omar Suleiman as Vice-President. Mubarak asked aviation minister and former chief of Egypt's Air Force, Ahmed Shafiq, to form a new government. Opposition to the Mubarak regime has coalesced around Mohamed ElBaradei, with all major opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, supporting his role as a negotiator for some form of transitional unity government. Read more...
The Third Square (Arabic: الميدان الثالث) is an Egyptian political movement created by liberal, leftist and moderate Islamist activists who reject both Muslim Brotherhood and military rule following the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état.
The movement first appeared when the Egyptian defence minister, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, called for mass demonstrations on 26 July 2013 to grant the military a "mandate" to crack down on "terrorism", which was seen as contradicting the military's pledges to hand over power to civilians after removing Morsi and as an indication for an imminent crackdown against Islamists. The announcement by General Al-Sisi was rejected by a number of political groups that had initially supported the military coup, such as the revolutionary April 6 Youth Movement, the moderate Strong Egypt Party, the Salafi Al-Nour Party and Egyptian human rights groups. Read more...
The Houthi movement (/ˈhuːθi/; Arabic: الحوثيون al-Ḥūthiyyūn [ˈħuːθij.juːn]), officially called Ansar Allah (anṣār allāh أنصار الله "Supporters of God"), is an Islamic religious-political-armed movement that emerged from Sa'dah in northern Yemen in the 1990s. They are of the Zaidi sect though the movement reportedly also includes Sunnis.
Under the leadership of Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the group emerged as a Zaydi opposition to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they charged with massive financial corruption and criticized for being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States at the expense of the Yemeni people and Yemen's sovereignty. Resisting Saleh's order for his arrest, Hussein was killed in Sa'dah in 2004 along with a number of his guards by the Yemeni army, sparking the Houthi insurgency in Yemen. Since then, except for a short intervening period, the movement has been led by his brother Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Read more...- A protest in Yerevan's Freedom Square on 8 April 2011
The 2011 Armenian protests were a series of civil demonstrations aimed at provoking political reforms and concessions from both the government of Armenia and the civic government of Yerevan, its capital and largest city. Protesters demanded President Serzh Sargsyan release political prisoners, prosecute those responsible for the deaths of opposition activists after the 2008 presidential election and institute democratic and socioeconomic reforms, including the right to organise in Freedom Square in downtown Yerevan. They also protested against Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan for banning the opposition from Freedom Square and barring vendors and traders from the city streets. The opposition bloc Armenian National Congress, which has played a major role in organising and leading the demonstrations, had also called for a snap election and the resignation of the government.
The government granted several concessions to the protesters, including agreeing to the opposition's terms for an inquiry into the 2008 protest deaths, granting them a permit to rally in Freedom Square, and releasing several imprisoned opposition activists. Read more... - Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb (Arabic: حمزة علي الخطيب) (October 24, 1997 – May 25, 2011) was a 13-year-old Syrian boy who died while in the custody of the Syrian government in Daraa. On April 29, 2011, he was detained during a protest. On May 25, 2011, his body was delivered to his family, having been badly bruised, along with burn marks, three gunshot wounds, and
severed genitals. Hamza's family distributed photos and video of his body to journalists and activists. Shocked by what was depicted, thousands of people showed their support for Hamza online and in street protests. Read more... - The Hashid (Arabic: حاشد; Musnad: 𐩢𐩦𐩵𐩣) is a tribal confederation in Yemen. It is the second or third largest – after Bakil and, depending on sources, Madh'hij – yet generally recognized as the strongest and most influential. According to medieval Yemeni genealogies, Hashid and Bakil were the sons of Jashim bin Jubran bin Nawf Bin Tuba'a bin Zayd bin Amr bin Hamdan. Member tribes of the Hashid Confederation are found primarily in the mountains in the North and Northwest of the country.
In recent times, Hashid confederation had for decades been led by the powerful Abushawareb clan. The clan's influence was built on an alliance with the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who relied on a coalition with the most prominent leader of the Hashid tribal confederation, Sheikh Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar, to take power in 1978. Until his death on 29 December 2007, Sheikh Abdullah served as the Speaker of Parliament and was considered Yemen's second most powerful person after President Saleh (who, along with many others in the government, also is a member of a Hashid tribe). Read more... - This is a broad timeline of the course of major events of the Syrian Civil War. It only includes major territorial changes and attacks and does not include every event.
The uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad gradually turned into a full-scale civil war, with two significant milestones being the initial March 2011 Arab Spring protests and the 15 July 2012 declaration by the International Committee of the Red Cross that the fighting had gradually become so widespread that the situation should be regarded as a civil war. Read more...
Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) attributed the protests against his rule to people who are "rats" and "cockroaches", terms that have been cited by Hutu radicals of the Tutsi population before the Rwanda genocide began, thus causing unease in the global community. Gaddafi accused his opponents as those who have been influenced by hallucinogenic drugs put in drinks and pills. He specifically referred to substances in milk, coffee and Nescafe. He claimed that Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were distributing these hallucinogenic drugs. He also blamed alcohol, which had been banned in Libya shortly after he took power in 1969.
Gaddafi also claimed that the protests against his rule were a "colonialist plot" by foreign countries to control oil and "enslave" Libyan people. He had asserted that he will chase down the protesters and cleanse the country "house by house". Gaddafi had also stated that "those who don't love me do not deserve to live". On 22 February 2011, Gaddafi mentioned China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre which crushed the democratic movement led by students and threatened widespread killings against dissidents in an appearance on state television as the revolt against his regime consolidated its grip on the eastern half of the country and spread to the suburbs of Tripoli.
Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has stated that family will "fight to the last man and woman and bullet".
He denied wrongdoing by government forces. "We are not killing our fellow citizens. We are not dropping bombs on them. We and our loyal army have shown unprecedented tolerance towards our own people, who are already armed with tanks and heavy artillery. But even despite that we do not touch innocent civilians." He said that the largest demonstration the opposition had made was of a few thousand people in Bengazi, and that the opposition was made up of terrorists who publicly executed soldiers of the Libyan army on "dozens of videos" on the Internet. He said that "Libya does not use mercenaries, period", and that half of Libya's population are blacks, some of whom were being falsely labeled as mercenaries. He accused opposition members, whom he called "armed bandits, who are sitting in the tanks", of being "eager to divide the country into two parts — the East and the West." Read more...
The National Transitional Council of Libya (Arabic: المجلس الوطني الإنتقالي al-majlis al-waṭanī al-intiqālī ), sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, was the de facto government of Libya for a period during and after the Libyan Civil War, in which rebel forces overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya of Muammar Gaddafi. The NTC governed Libya for a period of ten months after the end of the war, holding elections to a General National Congress on 7 July 2012, and handing power to the newly elected assembly on 8 August.
The formation of the NTC was announced in the city of Benghazi on 27 February 2011 with the purpose to act as the "political face of the revolution". On 5 March 2011, the council issued a statement in which it declared itself to be the "only legitimate body representing the people of Libya and the Libyan state". An executive board, chaired by Mahmoud Jibril, was formed by the council on 23 March 2011 after being de facto assembled as an "executive team" since 5 March 2011. The NTC issued a Constitutional Declaration in August 2011 in which it set up a road-map for the transition of the country to a constitutional democracy with an elected government. Read more...
The Egyptian revolution of 2011, locally known as the January 25 Revolution (Egyptian Arabic: ثورة 25 يناير; Thawret 25 yanāyir), and as the Egyptian Revolution of Dignity began on 25 January 2011 and took place across all of Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "police day" as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Mubarak's presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The revolution started by calls for protests from online youth groups. Initially these included liberal, anti-capitalist, nationalist, and feminist elements, but they finally included Islamist elements as well. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country. The protests took place in Cairo, Alexandria, and in all major cities across the nation.
The Egyptian protesters' grievances focused on legal and political issues, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, lack of free elections and freedom of speech, corruption, and economic issues including high unemployment, food-price inflation and low wages. The protesters' primary demands were the end of the Mubarak regime and emergency law, freedom, justice, a responsive non-military government and a voice in managing Egypt's resources. Strikes by labour unions added to the pressure on government officials. Read more...- The National Coordination Committee for the Forces of Democratic Change (NCC), or National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB) (Arabic: هيئة التنسيق الوطنية لقوى التغيير الديمقراطي), is a Syrian bloc chaired by Hassan Abdel Azim consisting of 13 left-wing political parties and "independent political and youth activists". It has been defined by Reuters as the internal opposition's main umbrella group. The NCC initially had several Kurdish political parties as members, but all except for the Democratic Union Party left in October 2011 to join the Kurdish National Council. Some opposition activists[who?] have accused the NCC of being a "front organization" for Bashar al-Assad's government and some of its members of being ex-government insiders.
Relations with other Syrian political opposition groups are generally poor. The Syrian Revolution General Commission, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria or the Supreme Council of the Syrian Revolution oppose the NCC calls to dialogue with the Syrian government. In September 2012, the Syrian National Council (SNC) reaffirmed that despite broadening its membership, it would not join with "currents close to [the] NCC". Despite recognizing the Free Syrian Army on 23 September 2012, the FSA has dismissed the NCC as an extension of the government, stating that "this opposition is just the other face of the same coin". Read more... - Khaled al-Johani (also al-Jehani, Arabic: خالد الجهني, born 1969/1970 (age 48–49)) is a teacher of religious instruction in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was imprisoned, without charges or trial for nearly one year, at `Ulaysha Prison for having publicly asked for freedoms and democracy in Saudi Arabia – an absolute monarchy – during the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests. His public statement was made to a BBC Arabic Television team on a street in Riyadh in the presence of security forces. On 22 February 2012 he was charged in a court for al-Qaeda suspects and a trial date set for April 2012. Al-Johani is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience . Read more...
Clockwise from top-left: Protesters raising their hands towards the Pearl Roundabout on 19 February 2011; Teargas usage by security forces and clashes with protesters on 13 March; Over 100,000 Bahrainis taking part in the "March of loyalty to martyrs", on 22 February; clashes between security forces and protesters on 13 March; Bahraini armed forces blocking an entrance to a Bahraini village.
The Bahraini uprising of 2011 was a series of anti-government protests in Bahrain led by the Shia-dominant Bahraini Opposition from 2011 until 2014. The protests were inspired by the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring and 2011–12 Iranian protests and escalated to daily clashes after the Bahraini government repressed the revolt with the support of Gulf Cooperation Council and Peninsula Shield Force. The Bahraini protests were a series of demonstrations, amounting to a sustained campaign of non-violent civil disobedience and later some violent resistance in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain. As part of the revolutionary wave of protests in the Middle East and North Africa following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, the Bahraini protests were initially aimed at achieving greater political freedom and equality for the majority Shia population, and expanded to a call to end the monarchy of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa following a deadly night raid on 17 February 2011 against protesters at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, known locally as Bloody Thursday.
Protesters in Manama camped for days at the Pearl Roundabout, which became the centre of the protests. After a month, the government of Bahrain requested troops and police aid from the Gulf Cooperation Council. On 14 March, 1,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and 500 troops from UAE entered Bahrain and crushed the uprising. A day later, King Hamad declared martial law and a three-month state of emergency. Pearl Roundabout was cleared of protesters and the iconic statue at its center was destroyed. Read more...
Sayyid Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi (Arabic: عبد الملك بدر الدين الحوثي) is a leader of the Zaidi revolution movement Ansar Allah (Houthis). His brothers Yahia Badreddin al-Houthi and Abdul-Karim Badreddin Al-Houthi are also leaders of the group, as was his late brother Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi. Abdul-Malik Houthi is the leading figure in a revolution starting in the Sa'dah province in northern Yemen which has been continuing from 2004 to the present day. The uprising has been called the Houthi Rebellion due to his leadership. The Zaidi community comprises around half of the population of Yemen, concentrated in the north. In traditional Zaidi religious belief if there is no clear leader for the Zaidi community a Imam/Caliph can emerge through armed struggle. Yemen was formerly ruled by a Zaidi Imamah/Caliphate that ended in 1962. Read more...
Bassem at Chatham House London Conference 2016
Bassem Raafat Muhammad Youssef (Egyptian Arabic: باسم رأفت محمد يوسف, IPA: [ˈbæːsem ˈɾɑʔfɑt mæˈħæmmæd ˈjuːsef]; born 22 March 1974) is an Egyptian comedian, writer, producer, surgeon, physician, media critic, and television host, who hosted El-Bernameg (The Show), a satirical news program, from 2011 to 2014. The press has compared Youssef with American comedian Jon Stewart, whose satire program The Daily Show inspired Youssef to begin his career. In 2013, he was named one of the "100 most influential people in the world" by Time magazine. Youssef's current projects are Tickling Giants, The Democracy Handbook, and Revolution For Dummies. Read more...
Mohamed Morsi (/ˈmɔːrsi/; Arabic: محمد محمد مرسي عيسى العياط, ALA-LC: Muḥammad Muḥammad Mursī ʿĪsā al-ʿAyyāṭ, IPA: [mæˈħæmmæd mæˈħæmmæd ˈmoɾsi ˈʕiːsæ (ʔe)l.ʕɑjˈjɑːtˤ]; born 8 August 1951) is an Egyptian politician who served as the fifth President of Egypt, from 30 June 2012 to 3 July 2013, when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed Morsi from office in the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état after the June 2013 Egyptian protests.
As president, Morsi issued a temporary constitutional declaration in late November that in effect granted him unlimited powers and the power to legislate without judicial oversight or review of his acts as a pre-emptive move against the expected dissolution of the second constituent assembly by the Mubarak-era judges. The new constitution that was then hastily finalised by the Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly, presented to the president, and scheduled for a referendum, before the Supreme Constitutional Court could rule on the constitutionality of the assembly, was described by independent press agencies not aligned with the regime as an "Islamist coup". These issues, along with complaints of prosecutions of journalists and attacks on nonviolent demonstrators, led to the 2012 Egyptian protests. As part of a compromise, Morsi rescinded the decrees. In the referendum he held on the new constitution it was approved by approximately two thirds of voters. Read more...- Libyan opposition in Benghazi during the uprising
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 was a measure adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on 26 February 2011. It condemned the use of lethal force by the government of Muammar Gaddafi against protesters participating in the Libyan Civil War, and imposed a series of international sanctions in response.
The Security Council resolution marked the first time a country was unanimously referred to the International Criminal Court by the council. Read more...
The anti-austerity movement in Portugal, also referred to as the 12th March Movement (Portuguese: Movimento 12 de Março), also referred to as the Geração à Rasca (Portuguese: [ʒɨɾɐˈsɐ̃w a ˈʁaʃkɐ], "struggling generation"), took place in more than 10 cities of Portugal against austerity, the economic crisis and labour rights (Manifest). They were the biggest events since the 1974 Carnation Revolution and organized without political parties or trades unions support.
A Facebook event and a blog, created by a group of friends: Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho, João Labrincha and Paula Gil, were the starting point. Read more...- The Democratic Constitutional Rally or Democratic Constitutional Assembly (Arabic: التجمع الدستوري الديمقراطي at-Tajammu‘ ad-Dustūrī ad-Dīmuqrāṭī, French: Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique, sometimes also called Constitutional Democratic Rally in English), also referred to by its French initials RCD, formerly called Neo Destour then Socialist Destourian Party, was the ruling party in Tunisia from independence in 1956 until it was overthrown and dissolved in the Tunisian revolution in 2011. Read more...
Yo Soy 132, commonly stylized as #YoSoy132, was a protest movement composed for the most part of Mexican university students from private and public universities, residents of Mexico, claiming supporters from about 50 cities around the world. It began as opposition to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and the Mexican media's allegedly biased coverage of the 2012 general election. The name Yo Soy 132, Spanish for "I Am 132", originated in an expression of solidarity with the original 131 protest's initiators. The phrase drew inspiration from the Occupy movement and the Spanish 15-M movement. The protest movement was self-proclaimed as the "Mexican spring" (an allusion to the Arab Spring) by its first spokespersons, and called the "Mexican occupy movement" in the international press. Read more...- A timeline of the Yemeni Revolution spans the following four articles related to the Yemeni Revolution:
- Timeline of the Yemeni Revolution (January – 2 June 2011), a chronology from the start of protests in mid-January 2011 to 2 June 2011, the eve of a pivotal bombing
- Timeline of the Yemeni Revolution (3 June – 22 September 2011), a chronology from the bombing of the presidential compound on 3 June 2011 to 22 September 2011, the last day of vice-presidential rule
- Timeline of the Yemeni Revolution (23 September – December 2011), a chronology from the president's return on 23 September 2011 to the end of December 2011
- Timeline of the Yemeni Revolution (January – 27 February 2012), a chronology from the start of 2012 to the inauguration of a new president on 27 February 2012
Samir Zaid al-Rifai (Arabic: سمير زيد الرفاعي) (born 1 July 1966) is a Jordanian politician who was Prime Minister of Jordan from 14 December 2009 to 9 February 2011. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that Meherzia Labidi Maïza was proud of including women's rights in the post-Arab Spring Tunisian constitution?
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Selected images
Demonstrators holding the Rabia sign in solidarity with the victims of the August 2013 Rabaa massacre of pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo
Thousands of demonstrators gather in Bayda.
Areas of control in the Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
Yemeni capital Sanaa after Saudi Arabian-led airstrikes against the Shia Houthis, October 2015
Over 100,000 Bahrainis taking part in the "March of Loyalty to Martyrs" in Manama honoring political dissidents killed by security forces
Protesters on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, downtown Tunis on 14 January 2011, a few hours before president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country
Celebrations in Tahrir Square after Omar Suleiman's statement concerning Hosni Mubarak's resignation
Anti-government demonstrations in Baniyas
Government overthrown multiple times Government overthrown Civil war Protests and governmental changes Major protests Minor protests Other protests and militant action outside the Arab world
Protests in Sana'a
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