Tarek El-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi (; 29 March 1984 – 4 January 2011) was a Tunisian street vendor who, in response to the confiscation of his wares as well as the harassment and humiliation inflicted by municipal officials and their aides, set himself on fire on 17 December 2010 in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. His act of self-immolation was the most immediate cause of the Tunisian Revolution, which was the first revolution in the wider Arab Spring against autocratic regimes.
Simmering public anger and sporadic violence intensified following Bouazizi's death, leading the then-president of Tunisia Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power. The success of the Tunisian protests inspired protests in several other Arab countries, plus several non-Arab countries, such as in China. The protests included several men who emulated Bouazizi's act of self-immolation, in an attempt to bring an end to their own autocratic governments. Those men and Bouazizi were hailed by New York Times commentators as "heroic martyrs of a new North African and Middle Eastern revolution".
In 2011, Bouazizi was posthumously awarded the Sakharov Prize jointly along with four others for his and their contributions to "historic changes in the Arab world". The Tunisian government honored him with a postage stamp. The Times of the United Kingdom named Bouazizi as "Person of 2011", The Jerusalem Posts Amotz Asa-El named him "Person of the Jewish Year 5771" and "The Protester" was named Time 2011 Person of the Year.
Early life Mohamed Bouazizi, who was known locally as "Babousa", was born in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, on 29 March 1984. His father, Tayeb, a construction worker in Libya, died of a heart attack when Bouazizi was three, and his mother, Manoubia, married Bouazizi's uncle some time later.
Along with his six siblings, Bouazizi was educated in a one-room country school in Sidi Salah, a small village from Sidi Bouzid. Although several media outlets reported that Bouazizi had a university degree, his sister, Samia Bouazizi, stated that he had never graduated from high school, but that it was something he had wanted for both himself and his sisters. With his uncle in poor health and unable to work regularly, Bouazizi had worked various jobs since he was ten, and in his late teens he quit school in order to work full-time.
His father left a three-hectare plot of land whose produce hardly provided for the family. His uncle tried to build a farm that used irrigation water by taking a loan from a bank to finance the project. Though Bouazizi worked on the farm, his uncle fell in debt, and subsequently, the bank took hold of the land. It was during that time that Bouazizi became a street vendor.
Bouazizi lived in a modest stucco home, a 20-minute walk from the centre of Sidi Bouzid, a rural town in Tunisia that was estimated to have an unemployment rate of 30%. According to his mother, he applied to join the army, but was refused, and several subsequent job applications also resulted in rejection. He supported his mother, uncle, and younger siblings, including paying for one of his sisters to attend university, by earning approximately per month selling produce on the street in Sidi Bouzid. He was also working toward the goal of buying or renting a pickup truck for his work. A close friend of Bouazizi said he "was a very well-known and popular man who would give free fruit and vegetables to very poor families".
Self-immolation and aftermath
According to friends and family, local police officers had been targeting and mistreating Bouazizi since his childhood, regularly confiscating his produce cart; Bouazizi, having no other way to make a living, continued working as a street vendor. Ostensibly, he was targeted because he lacked a vendor's permit, but whether he even required one was initially unclear: Rania Abouzeid of Time claimed that street vending was outright illegal in Tunisia, while The Guardian reporter Peter Beaumont claimed that Bouazizi had attempted to secure a permit but was refused. Following his death, it was confirmed by then-head of the Sidi Bouzid State Office for Employment and Independent Work Hamdi Lazhar that no permit is required to sell from a cart. As a result, police were accused by two of Bouazizi's sisters of attempting to extort him, leaving him ultimately unable to pay the bribes necessary to allow his street vending to continue. In an interview with Reuters, one of the sisters stated: "What kind of repression do you imagine it takes for a young man to do this? A man who has to feed his family by buying goods on credit when they fine him ... and take his goods. In Sidi Bouzid, those with no connections and no money for bribes are humiliated and insulted and not allowed to live."
On the evening of 16 December 2010, he took on approximately in debt in order to acquire the produce he was to sell the following day. The following morning on 17 December 2010, he started his workday at Just after , the police began to harass him. The details of the events were disputed: Bouazizi's family alleged that he was publicly humiliated and slapped in the face by police officer Faida Hamdi, who allegedly spat at him before toppling his cart and confiscating his electronic scales. It was also claimed that she made a slur against his deceased father; her gender, according to his family, made his humiliation worse. Hamdi and her brother disputed this, maintaining that she did not slap Bouazizi or otherwise mistreat him, and an unnamed eyewitness likewise said to Asharq Al-Awsat that they did not see her slap Bouazizi. Hamdi did admit, however, that her colleagues may have kicked and beaten him after confiscating his fruit cart.
Following the confrontation, Bouazizi went to the governor's office to complain and demand the return of his scales. The governor refused to see or listen to him, even after Bouazizi was quoted as saying, "If you don't see me, I'll burn myself." Bouazizi then acquired a can of gasoline from a nearby gas station and returned to the governor's office. At , less than an hour after the altercation, Bouazizi stood outside the office in the middle of traffic and shouted, "How do you expect me to make a living?" before dousing himself and igniting himself with a match.
According to Bouazizi's sister and uncle, people immediately panicked when he caught fire, and one of them tried to douse him with water. Bouazizi had suffered burns on over 90% of his body before locals managed to stop the flames. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was placed in an intensive care unit. He was subsequently transferred to a second, larger hospital in Sfax, more than away, and then to the Ben Arous Burn and Trauma Centre in the capital, away.
On 31 December 2010, doctors reported that Bouazizi was in stable condition, and that he was showing a positive possibility of recovery. Despite the optimistic prognosis, Bouazizi remained comatose until his death. Bouazizi was visited in the hospital by then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who promised to send him to France for medical treatment according to Bouazizi's mother Benobia, but no such transfer ultimately occurred, leading to criticism.
Bouazizi died on 4 January 2011, at local time. It is estimated that more than 5,000 people participated in the funeral procession that began in Sidi Bouzid and continued through to Bouazizi's native village, though police did not allow the procession to pass near the spot at which Bouazizi had burned himself. From the crowd, many were heard chanting "Farewell, Mohamed. We will avenge you. We weep for you today. We will make those who caused your death weep." He was buried at Garaat Bennour cemetery, 15 kilometres (10 mi) from Sidi Bouzid. His grave was described by Al-Jazeera as "simple" and surrounded by cacti, olive, and almond trees. In addition, a Tunisian flag flies next to the site. Tom Chesshyre also describes his tomb after visiting it: small, white, by a row of cacti, and with a simple inscription: "Martyr Mohamed Bouazizi. Peace for his life. And in the next life, have peace as well".
Investigation An investigation was launched following Bouazizi's self-immolation to find the details leading up to his actions. On 20 December 2010, it was reported that Faida Hamdi, the officer who accosted Bouazizi the day of his immolation, was suspended along with the secretary-general (governor) of Sidi Bouzid, but this was subsequently denied by the latter. Some time later, Hamdi was arrested on orders from President Ben Ali and held in an unspecified town. A brother of Hamdi later stated that she had been arrested and detained twice, the first time following Ben Ali's visit to Bouazizi in the hospital and subsequent meeting with Bouazizi's mother and sister at his presidential palace. Hamdi's brother then says his sister and her aides were released following a short detention and the closing of the investigation which "confirmed her innocence". He said her second arrest was "in response to the demands of the Tunisian protesters", and that the Tunisian security authorities informed him that she was being held only for her own protection and would be released once the protesting ended.
According to Bouazizi's mother, Bouazizi chose to take this action because he had been humiliated, not because of the family's poverty. "It got to him deep inside, it hurt his pride," she said, referring to the police harassment. One of Bouazizi's sisters stated during an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that their family intends to take legal action against all involved, "whether this is the municipal officers that slapped and insulted him, or the mayor [who] refused to meet him."
On 19 April 2011, the case against Hamdi was dropped and she was cleared of all charges after Bouazizi's mother withdrew the family's complaint against her. She stated, "It was a difficult but well-thought-out decision to avoid hatred and ... [to] help reconcile the residents of Sidi Bouzid." Hamdi had maintained her innocence, telling the court she did not slap Bouazizi, while her lawyer said the matter was "purely a political affair." Bouazizi's brother Salem supported the decision, saying, "All the money in the world can't replace the loss of Mohamed who sacrificed himself for freedom and for dignity." Large crowds of people outside the courtroom also appeared to have been satisfied by the Bouazizi family's decision, with some claiming Hamdi was being used as a scapegoat.
Protests
Outraged by the events that led to Bouazizi's self-immolation, protests began in Sidi Bouzid within hours, building for more than two weeks, with attempts by police to quiet the unrest serving only to fuel what was quickly becoming a violent and deadly movement. After Bouazizi's death, the protests became widespread, moving into the more affluent areas and eventually into the capital. The anger and violence became so intense that President Ben Ali fled Tunisia with his family on 14 January 2011, trying first to go to Paris but being refused refuge by the French government. They were eventually welcomed into Saudi Arabia under "a long list of conditions" which included being barred from public exposure (including the media) and from working in politics, thus ending his 23-year rule and sparking "angry condemnation" among Saudis. In Tunisia, unrest persisted as a new regime took over, leaving many citizens of Tunisia feeling as though their needs were still being ignored.
Legacy