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 saw thousands rally in February 2011 against a president who had scrapped his own term limit, but police broke up the crowds and the protests ended after mass arrests.

What was Mohamed Bouazizi's occupation?

Street vendor: he sold fruit and vegetables to support his mother and siblings. Early reports wrongly made him a jobless university graduate, but he never finished high school.

Which European capital named a square after Mohamed Bouazizi in February 2011, weeks after his death?

Paris: its council voted the name unanimously five weeks after Bouazizi died, and that June his mother looked on as the mayor opened the square in the south of the city.

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

Sidi Bouzid, a town in Tunisia's interior, saw protests begin within hours of Bouazizi's act; they spread across the country and brought down the president in under a month.

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

His electronic scales: the family said officer Faida Hamdi also slapped him. She denied it, and after months in jail she was cleared of all charges.

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

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali took nearly two weeks to visit Bouazizi's hospital bedside. The gesture failed to calm the streets, and within three weeks he had fled the country.

To which country did Tunisia's ousted president flee on 14 January 2011?

Saudi Arabia refused Tunisia's request to send him back, so he never served the sentences its courts passed in his absence. He died in Jeddah in 2019.

Western media nicknamed the Tunisian revolution after which flower?

The jasmine label came from foreign media. Tunisians speak of a revolution of dignity, and their 2014 constitution calls it the revolution for freedom and dignity.

Which Arabic slogan became the signature chant of the Arab Spring?

The people want to bring down the regime was raised first by Tunisia's revolutionaries, then taken up in Egypt, and was soon heard from Morocco to Bahrain.

Which organisation took command of the 2011 air campaign against Gaddafi's forces in Libya?

NATO took over a campaign begun by French, British and American forces. Its strikes tipped the military balance toward the rebels, who took Tripoli five months later.

Decades before Bouazizi, which Czech student set himself on fire in Prague in January 1969 as a political protest?

Jan Palach, a 20-year-old student, set himself alight five months after Soviet-led armies crushed the Prague Spring reforms, and his death held the whole country's attention.

Egypt's uprising began on 25 January 2011, a date organisers chose because it was which national holiday?

Police Day: youth groups picked the holiday that honours the police to protest against police brutality, and in Egypt the uprising is known as the 25 January Revolution.

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

Tahrir Square held even when Mubarak supporters charged into it on horses and camels on 2 February. The crowds stayed put until he fell nine days later.

Which Facebook page, named for a man killed by Alexandria police, helped spark Egypt's uprising?

We Are All Khaled Said drew hundreds of thousands of members and became a forum on police brutality. After Tunisia's ruler fell, its anonymous founder called for the same in Egypt.

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

Google's regional marketing head was held in secret for 11 days. Hours after his release he wept through a television interview that is often credited with reviving the protests.

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

Cut internet and mobile networks nationwide: the blackout lasted five days and failed. Protests swelled after that Friday's prayers, and by nightfall the army was on the streets.

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

Vice President Omar Suleiman read the statement on state television, a day after Mubarak had gone on air himself and defied the crowds by vowing to stay until September.

Mubarak became president in 1981 after which leader's assassination?

Anwar Sadat was shot dead at a military parade in October 1981. Mubarak, his deputy, took over and ruled for almost 30 years, naming no deputy of his own until the uprising.

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

Life imprisonment, for complicity in the deaths of demonstrators, did not stand: the verdict was overturned on appeal, and after a retrial he was acquitted and freed in 2017.

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

Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood beat a former Mubarak prime minister in a run-off. A year later the army removed him after mass protests against his rule.

Which general led the coup that removed Egypt's elected president on 3 July 2013?

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi owed his post to the man he removed, who had promoted him to defence minister less than a year earlier. He was elected president himself in 2014.

On 14 August 2013, Egyptian security forces cleared a sit-in by the ousted president's supporters around which Cairo mosque?

Rabaa al-Adawiya gave the sit-in its emblem: rabaa means 'fourth' in Arabic, so supporters adopted a four-finger salute. Human Rights Watch counted at least 817 killed there.

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

Benghazi rose after police arrested Fethi Tarbel, a human rights lawyer. Crowds angered by the arrest were soon calling for Gaddafi himself to step down.

What did the UN authorise in Libya on 17 March 2011?

A no-fly zone passed 10–0 because Russia and China abstained instead of using their vetoes. Two days later, coalition warplanes and missiles began striking Gaddafi's forces.

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

Sirte was Gaddafi's home town and one of his last strongholds. Rebel fighters found him hiding in a drainage pipe after an air strike scattered his fleeing convoy.

By which military rank was Muammar Gaddafi known throughout his 42 years ruling Libya?

Colonel: Gaddafi was a captain when he seized power in a bloodless coup in 1969. He promoted himself afterwards, taking the rank of his idol, Egypt's Nasser.

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

Ali Abdullah Saleh had repeatedly pulled out of signing at the last minute. The deal gave him immunity from prosecution, a clause that angered many demonstrators.

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

A bombing at a mosque in his compound left him with severe burns. He was flown abroad for treatment the next day and stayed away for over three months, then abruptly came back, still president.

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

He was killed by Houthi fighters, the rebels he had allied with to seize the capital. Days earlier he had broken with them and offered talks with the Saudi-led coalition.

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

Tawakkol Karman was arrested in January 2011 after leading a small protest in Sanaa. Her arrest sparked far bigger ones, and within two days she was free and leading them.

Bahrain's 2011 demonstrators camped for a month around which landmark in Manama?

The Pearl Roundabout lost its monument two days after troops cleared the camp. The government tore it down, and the foreign minister explained that it had become 'a bad memory'.

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

Peninsula Shield, the Gulf states' joint force, sent in about 1,000 Saudi soldiers and 500 Emirati police. The next day Bahrain's king declared a three-month state of emergency.

Bahrain's 2011 uprising was led mainly by which community, a majority under a Sunni monarchy?

Shia Muslims are the majority in Bahrain and had long complained of discrimination. After the crackdown the government demolished dozens of Shia mosques, saying they had been built illegally.

Which major sporting event in Bahrain was called off in 2011 as the uprising wore on?

The Formula One Grand Prix was due on 13 March and was called off in February. Officials restored it to the calendar for October, then organisers gave up on it after an outcry.

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

Bashar al-Assad trained as an eye doctor in London and became heir only after his elder brother died in a car crash in 1994. His fall ended five decades of family rule.

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

Moscow took in Assad and his family 'out of humanitarian considerations', Russian agencies reported. Russia had fought on his side since 2015, and the Kremlin said Putin granted the asylum himself.

Which rebel group governed Idlib from 2017 and led the offensive that toppled Assad in 2024?

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham grew out of al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, which cut its ties to al-Qaeda in 2016. In January 2025 its leader became Syria's interim president.

Which Syrian city did rebels and government forces fight over from 2012 until the rebels surrendered it in December 2016?

Aleppo took Assad's forces four years to win back. In November 2024 rebels retook the city within days, and his regime fell barely a week later.

Which kind of Arab ruler came through the Arab Spring without a single one being toppled?

Hereditary monarchs all kept their thrones. Several headed off the crowds with concessions, from sacking unpopular officials to rewriting constitutions.

Which Arab kingdom's ruler sacked his prime minister in February 2011 after weeks of protests?

Jordan's King Abdullah II told the new prime minister to launch real political reforms. The Islamist opposition rejected the appointment, and the street protests went on.

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

Winter was forecast early. In June 2011 the Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei told Francis Fukuyama in a public debate that the region's spring would soon turn into a winter.

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

The Protester stood for nameless crowds from Tunis and Cairo to Occupy Wall Street. Two weeks later The Times of London went the other way and named one man, Bouazizi, its person of 2011.

Which European Parliament human rights prize went to Mohamed Bouazizi and four other Arab Spring activists in 2011?

The Sakharov Prize went to five activists that year. One, the Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat, had both hands broken months earlier by masked men who called it just a warning.

Which of these was one of the four groups in Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet, winner of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize?

The General Labour Union joined employers, lawyers and rights activists in 2013, after two politicians were assassinated. The Nobel committee said their talks pulled Tunisia back from the brink of civil war.

Which Islamist party led Tunisia's government during the 2013 crisis that the National Dialogue Quartet helped to resolve?

Ennahda won Tunisia's first free election in 2011. After the killings of two secular politicians split the country, it stepped down in favour of a caretaker government.

Who became Tunisia's president in December 2014, aged 88, after winning its first free presidential election?

Beji Caid Essebsi had served both of Tunisia's autocratic rulers, as a minister under one and speaker of parliament under the other. Opponents called his win the return of the old guard.

Which country's army removed Omar al-Bashir in 2019 after 30 years in power, in what some called a second Arab Spring?

Sudan's protests began over the price of bread and ended with crowds camped outside army headquarters. Nine days earlier, weeks of marches in Algeria had forced out Abdelaziz Bouteflika after 20 years.

Which prime minister toured Egypt, Tunisia and Libya in September 2011 and was greeted by cheering crowds in Cairo?

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan landed to posters hailing him as a hero. Some in the crowds saw his country as a model: contested elections and a secular constitution under a governing party with Islamist roots.

Which Egyptian heart surgeon turned satirist after the 2011 revolution and became known as the Jon Stewart of Egypt?

Bassem Youssef expected about 10,000 views for clips he shot at home with one camera, and got five million. His TV show later brought him an arrest warrant for insulting the president.

Opponents of Yemen's president camped outside Sanaa University from February 2011 in a square they named what?

Change Square grew up at the university gates because the president's supporters had already pitched tents in the capital's central Liberation Square, forcing his opponents to gather elsewhere.

Which president did Tunisia's ousted ruler depose in 1987?

Habib Bourguiba had led Tunisia since independence from France in 1956. He was removed in a bloodless coup by the prime minister he had appointed only weeks earlier.

Which Egyptian activist group grew out of a Facebook page backing a 2008 textile strike and helped call the January 2011 protests?

The April 6 Movement is named for the day in 2008 when mill workers in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla planned to strike. Three years later its young founders were among the organisers of 25 January.

Which world leader was first to recognise Libya's rebel council as the country's government, in March 2011?

Nicolas Sarkozy moved while his European partners held back. Nine days later a French jet fired the opening shots of the air campaign, hours after he hosted a summit of allied leaders.

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

Western Sahara's tent camp was cleared weeks before Tunisia's revolt began. Noam Chomsky has argued that the wave of Arab protests really started there, not in Tunisia.

In which southern Syrian city did the arrest of teenagers for anti-regime graffiti spark the first major protests in March 2011?

Daraa's graffiti read 'It's your turn, Doctor', a jab at Syria's president, a trained eye doctor. The boys were beaten in custody, and their families' protests set off the uprising.

Which organisation suspended Syria's membership in November 2011 over its crackdown on demonstrators?

The Arab League shut out Syria, one of its own founding members, and in 2013 gave its seat at a summit to the opposition. In 2023 it voted to take the government back.

Which Gulf state put 94 government critics on mass trial in 2013, after a 2011 petition for an elected parliament?

The UAE. Its State Security Court jailed most of the 94 for seven to 15 years for 'plotting to overthrow the state', with no right of appeal, in a trial Amnesty International called grossly unfair.

Which Saudi journalist, a critic of his own government, was assassinated at a consulate in Istanbul in 2018?

Jamal Khashoggi, who had cheered the uprisings of 2011, went to the Saudi consulate for a paper he needed to marry his fiancée. She waited outside for hours, but he never came out.

Which news network did Mubarak's government order out of Cairo in January 2011, cancelling its licence and its reporters' accreditation?

Al Jazeera. The information minister shut its Cairo bureau as the uprising spread; the network called the order an attempt to silence Egyptians and vowed to keep reporting.

Which of Syria's neighbours took in the most refugees during its civil war?

Turkey. Its law gave refugee status only to people from European countries, so the millions of Syrians escaping the war that followed the 2011 uprising stayed as 'guests' under temporary protection.