Thousands protest in Sidi Bouzid after Tunisian opposition figure killed

[Bosonic]

Source: Reuters

Thousands of protesters gathered in Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the Arab Spring uprisings, after a prominent secular opponent of Tunisia's moderate Islamist-led government was shot dead on Wednesday.

"More than four thousand are protesting now, burning tires and throwing stones at the police," Mehdi Horchani, a Sidi Bouzid resident, told Reuters. "There is great anger".

Thousands were also protesting in Tunis after Shokri Belaid was killed outside his home there on Wednesday.

Tunisians rose up against long-time leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in Sidi Bouzid in late 2010.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/06/us-tunisia-politics-protests-idUSBRE9150FU20130206

[Arctic Dave]

1. The honeymoon must be over for the AS.

Who do you think will win, the secularist or the religious?

[UnrepentantLiberal]

3. Who said it was a "honeymoon"?

They were tired of being ruled by dictators for life. No one said the transition was going to be easy.

[joshcryer]

5. +1

But so many here think that magically the Arab Spring was going to usher in peace and enlightenment. No, the Arab world has been subjected to dictators for a very long time, the gasket has to blow and the people themselves have to organize before they can get their shit together. Democracy is nasty business, but it's worth aspiring toward even as people use racist or xenophobic arguments as to how a whole group of peoples is "islamist" or "terroristic."

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

(Not a Churchill fan but it's a good quote.)

[UnrepentantLiberal]

6. I've used that quote.

Leftists have convinced themselves that the AS is a conspiracy and will use anything to trash it.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Leftists? What kind of crap is that?

The guy who just got killed was a leftist.

Some people on the left may be skeptical of Western motivations and attempted manipulations of events, not to mention overwrought and one-sided reporting by Western media, but that's different from denying the authenticity of these popular upswellings.

[OKNancy]

2. kick

[Bosonic]

4. Tunisian government out after critic's killing causes fury

Tunisia's ruling Islamists dissolved the government on Wednesday and promised rapid elections in a bid to calm the biggest street protests since the revolution two years ago, sparked by the killing of an opposition leader.

The prime minister's announcement that an interim cabinet of technocrats would replace his Islamist-led coalition came at the end of a day which had begun with the gunning down of Chokri Belaid, a left-wing lawyer with a modest political following but who spoke for many who fear religious radicals are stifling freedoms won in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings.

During the day, protesters battled police in the streets of the capital and other cities, including Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the Jasmine Revolution that toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

In Tunis, the crowd set fire to the headquarters of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party which won the most seats in an legislative election 16 months ago.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/06/us-tunisia-politics-idUSBRE9150B820130206

[UnrepentantLiberal]

7. That's quite a turn of events.

It was inevitable that this would take many years to play out.