Fire With Water

A mixed bag in Tunisia a year after Ben Ali's departure

January 14 marked the one year anniversary of the Tunisian Revolution’s victory- the day Ben Ali fled the country after 23 years of dictatorship. The link above is a pretty cool analysis of what has and hasn’t changed in Tunisia in the past twelve months: they have pluralistic politics; the economy and employment rate haven’t improved, and have even gotten worse; there has been a strong culture of protest, but police have continued assaulting them; freedom of the press now exists in theory, but is still pretty weak in practice due threats and assaults against journalists and bloggers; and they signed some human rights documents but the pace of real human rights reform has been slow.