Press freedom and the Arab Spring, ten years on

Ten years ago last Thursday, the dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia and his regime fell. He had been under intense public pressure for several weeks, ever since a fruit vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest his treatment by police, sparking mass protests. The fall of Ben Ali was a seminal moment in the wave of regional uprisings that quickly came to be known as the Arab Spring, with demonstrators from North Africa to the Gulf demanding economic dignity,...