60 Fun Facts About Arab Spring

Which of these countries saw only minor protests during the Arab Spring, rather than an uprising or civil war?

Djibouti, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara were the other places with only minor protests.

What was Mohamed Bouazizi's occupation?

He was known locally as Babousa and had supported his family since his father died when he was three.

On what date did Bouazizi set himself on fire?

He died of his burns on 4 January 2011, ten days before the president fled.

In which Tunisian town did Bouazizi's protest take place?

It is the capital of a governorate in the centre of the country.

According to his family, what did the police officer confiscate that sent Bouazizi to the governor's office to complain?

The family said officer Faida Hamdi slapped him and toppled his cart; the details remain disputed.

Which Tunisian president was forced from power on 14 January 2011 after 23 years?

He had visited Bouazizi in hospital and promised to send him to France for treatment.

To which country did Ben Ali flee?

He officially resigned only after leaving the country, ending a 28-day campaign of civil resistance.

Western media nicknamed the Tunisian revolution after which flower?

The name follows the fashion for colour revolutions; Tunisians themselves called it the Revolution of Dignity.

What was the most famous slogan of the Arab Spring, chanted in Arabic across the region?

In Arabic it runs ash-sha'b yurid isqat an-nizam.

Which political scientist said he may have unintentionally coined the term Arab Spring in a January 2011 article for Foreign Policy?

Protesters themselves preferred words like intifada, sahwa (awakening) and thawra (revolution).

The Arab Spring label echoes the Prague Spring of 1968, in which a Czech student set himself on fire as Bouazizi did. Who was he?

Critics say the Spring metaphor projects Western expectations onto the Arab uprisings.

The Egyptian revolution is known in Egypt by the January date it began. Which day?

It is also called the Revolution of Freedom, the Revolution of Rage and, less often, the Lotus Revolution.

Which Cairo square became the centre of Egypt's 2011 protests?

On 2 February pro-Mubarak men rode camels and horses into the crowd in what became known as the Camel Incident.

Which Facebook page, named for a young man beaten to death by police in Alexandria, helped spark Egypt's uprising?

More than three million people joined the page, run by Wael Ghonim and AbdelRahman Mansour.

Wael Ghonim, the activist behind the famous Facebook page, was a regional executive for which company?

He was detained for eleven days during the revolution, and Google appealed to the public to help find him.

What did the Mubarak regime do in the early hours of 28 January 2011?

Nine in ten Egyptians and Tunisians polled said they used Facebook to organise protests.

Who announced Hosni Mubarak's resignation on 11 February 2011?

Power passed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

For how many years had Mubarak been president when he resigned?

He took office in 1981 after Anwar Sadat's assassination and survived six attempts on his life.

What sentence did an Egyptian court hand Mubarak on 2 June 2012?

He died in February 2020 at the age of 91.

Who was sworn in on 30 June 2012 as Egypt's first democratically elected president?

He came from the Muslim Brotherhood and had first been elected to parliament in 2000.

Which general led the coup that removed Morsi on 3 July 2013?

He suspended the 2012 constitution and later became president himself.

On 14 August 2013 Egyptian security forces raided a pro-Morsi protest camp at which Cairo mosque?

A second, smaller camp at al-Nahda Square was cleared the same day.

Libya's uprising began with protests in which city on 15 February 2011?

The February 17 Brigade, an Islamist group, later took its name from those days.

Which numbered UN Security Council measure created a no-fly zone over Libya on 17 March 2011?

A multi-state coalition began enforcing it days later, and also flew strike missions against Libyan army targets.

Near which city was Muammar Gaddafi killed on 20 October 2011?

He had fled there in a small convoy on the day Tripoli fell.

In which year had Gaddafi taken power in Libya through a bloodless coup?

He set out his Third International Theory in The Green Book.

Which Yemeni president signed a Gulf Cooperation Council deal in Riyadh in November 2011 to hand power to his vice-president?

He gained immunity from prosecution and left office by February 2012.

How was Yemen's long-time ruler injured on 3 June 2011?

At least five people were killed in the blast; he later returned for his successor's inauguration.

What eventually happened to Yemen's ousted ruler in December 2017?

His former Houthi allies accused him of treason during a battle in the capital.

Which Yemeni activist shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Arab woman to win a Nobel?

She was also the first Yemeni and only the second Muslim woman to win any Nobel Prize.

Bahrain's uprising centred on which landmark in Manama, later demolished by the government?

The monument at its centre was torn down on 18 March 2011, and a worker died in the process.

Which regional military formation did the Gulf Cooperation Council send into Bahrain in March 2011?

Bahrain had one of the region's highest internet penetrations, with 88% online in 2011.

The Bahraini uprising is also known by the February date it began. Which day?

A deadly night raid on the roundabout on 17 February became known locally as Bloody Thursday.

Which major sporting event in Manama was cancelled in 2011 as the uprising wore on?

An independent commission under Cherif Bassiouni was appointed in June 2011 to investigate the crackdown.

Which Syrian president, in power since 2000, was finally overthrown in December 2024?

He fled the country as rebels entered Damascus.

Where did Assad go when he fled Damascus on 8 December 2024?

The outgoing prime minister agreed that day to lead a caretaker transitional government.

Which Islamist militia ran the Syrian Salvation Government in Idlib from 2017 until 2024?

It described its Idlib administration as technocratic.

Which four rulers were deposed in the first phase of the Arab Spring?

Three fell in 2011; Yemen's Saleh followed in 2012.

Which kind of regimes were most likely to see their rulers toppled during the Arab Spring?

Countries with strong welfare programmes and weak middle classes did not see successful revolutions.

Protests in Jordan caused King Abdullah to sack how many successive governments?

Jordan, Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan all saw sustained street demonstrations.

The wave of civil wars and authoritarian resurgence that followed the uprisings is often called the Arab what?

Some American pundits also coined the phrases Islamist Spring and Islamist Winter.

Whom did Time magazine name Person of the Year in December 2011?

The Times of London separately named Bouazizi its Person of 2011.

Which European Parliament human rights award was given posthumously to Bouazizi and four others in 2011?

It honoured their contributions to historic changes in the Arab world.

The National Dialogue Quartet won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. Which of these is one of its four member organisations?

The others are the employers' confederation UTICA, the Human Rights League and the Order of Lawyers.

Which Islamist party led Tunisia's government during the constitutional crisis that the Quartet helped resolve?

The Quartet formed in the summer of 2013 after the constitutional process stalled.

Who was sworn in on 31 December 2014, aged 88, as the first freely elected president of modern Tunisia?

His political involvement dated back to joining the Neo Destour youth organisation in 1941.

Which two presidents were overthrown in 2019 in what some called a Second Arab Spring?

Prime ministers Haider al-Abadi of Iraq and Saad Hariri of Lebanon also resigned in that wave.

Which Turkish model did some protesters cite as an ideal?

Others blamed the unrest partly on soaring food prices driven by commodity traders and crop-to-ethanol conversion.

As of 5 April 2011, roughly how many Facebook users were there in the Arab world?

Social media use more than doubled in Arab countries during the protests, except in Libya.

Yemen's Sanaa protesters camped from February 2011 in a square they named for what?

Security forces and armed civilians opened fire on marchers who left it for the city centre.

Ben Ali had held power in Tunisia since which year?

He was the country's second president, after Habib Bourguiba.

Which Egyptian textile town's 2008 strike attempt gave rise to the 6 April youth movement?

The '6 April Committee' of youths and labour activists became a major force calling for the 25 January 2011 demonstration in Tahrir Square.

Tunisia's most notable pre-2011 unrest came in 2008 in which mining region?

Rallies, sit-ins and strikes there ran for months, leaving two dead and dozens arrested three years before Bouazizi's protest.

The Gdeim Izik protest camp, dismantled by Moroccan forces in November 2010, was set up in which territory?

Young Sahrawis erected it near El Aaiún to protest job discrimination and looted resources; some see it as a precursor to the Arab Spring.

In which southern Syrian city were about 15 children arrested in March 2011 for anti-regime graffiti?

Daraa became the first city to protest against the Ba'athist government that had ruled Syria since 1963.

Roughly what share of Bahrain's population was online in 2011, among the highest of the Arab Spring states?

Protests erupted regardless of connectivity: Yemen and Libya had some of the region's lowest internet penetration.

How many activists signed the 2011 UAE petition for democratic reforms that led to the 'UAE-94' mass trial?

Ninety-four of them were arrested in 2012, held in secret and, after a trial condemned as unfair, 69 received sentences of up to 15 years.

Which Saudi journalist covered the Arab Spring, criticised his government, and was assassinated in 2018?

Saudi forces crushed protests at home and helped Bahrain suppress its own uprising in 2011.

In one poll, roughly what proportion of Egyptians and Tunisians said they used Facebook to organise protests?

Young Egyptian men called themselves 'the Facebook generation', though in Cairo mosques were also key hubs for coordinating protests.

Roughly how many people were killed in the Syrian civil war that grew out of the 2011 protests?

The war produced one of the largest refugee crises in modern history and ended only with the regime's collapse in December 2024.