2010
December 17: An unemployed youth Mohammad Bu Azizi immolates himself in the central town of Sidi Bouzid in protest against his vegetable cart’s confiscation by police. Local residents demonstrate in support.
December 24: Police shoot a demonstrator in a village near Sidi Bouzid. First death reported.
2011
January 4: A badly burned Bu Azizi dies of his injuries. A huge funeral gives momentum to protests against unemployment and repression.
January 11: Unrest continues to spread across Tunisia. Schools and universities are shuttered.
January 12: President Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali fires his interior minister and promises the release of detained protesters and the formation of an anti-corruption commission. Multiple deaths are reported across the country.
January 14: Bin Ali goes into exile amid continuing protests.
January 17: Prime Minister Mohammad Gannouchi appoints opposition figures to a new national unity coalition and promises to free political prisoners.
January 20: After first cabinet meeting, government offers amnesty to all political groups, including banned groups
February 27: Gannouchi resigns after violent protests over his ties to Bin Ali, triggering street celebrations in central Tunis. He is replaced by Al Baji Qaed Al Sibsi.
March 9: A Tunisian court rules that Bin Ali’s party be dissolved, triggering street celebrations.
June 20: A Tunisian court sentences Bin Ali and his wife Laila Trabelsi, in absentia, to 35 years in jail for theft and for illegally possessing large sums of cash.
July 28: Tunisia sentences Bin Ali and his son-in-law to 16 years each in jail, on charges of corruption.
October 1: Campaigning begins for what is billed as the first free election in the country’s history. About 11,000 candidates will contest 218 seats in an assembly which will have the task of drafting a new constitution.
October 23: Tunisians vote in their first free elections after their revolution
November 22: Al Nahda party, Tunisia’s newly-elected assembly, holds its inaugural meeting
December 23: Tunisia’s constituent assembly approved the North African country’s new government.
2012
June 13: Former President Bin Ali is sentenced to life in prison over killing of protesters
2013:
February 6: Prominent Tunisian opposition leader and outspoken government critic Shukri Belaid is shot dead outside his home in Tunis.
— Compiled by Gulf News Archives
