Tunisia in the News…..Leader Flees…..Sharia Not an Issue

 Article   written by David D. Kirkpatrick at the New York Times….

TUNIS — Tunisia’s president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled his country on Friday night, capitulating after a month of mounting protests calling for an end to his 23 years of authoritarian rule. The official Saudi Arabian news agency said he arrived in the country early Saturday.

“What happened here is going to affect the whole Arab world,” said Zied Mhirsi, a 33-year-old doctor protesting outside the Interior Ministry on Friday. He carried a sign highlighting how he believed Tunisia’s protests could embolden the swelling numbers of young people around the Arab world to emulate the so-called Jasmine Revolution.

Because the protests came together largely through informal online networks, their success has also raised questions about whether a new opposition movement has formed that could challenge whatever new government takes shape. Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, a close ally from the president’s hometown, announced on state television that he was taking power as interim president. But that step violated the Tunisian Constitution, which provides for a succession by the head of Parliament, something that Mr. Ghannouchi tried to gloss over by describing Mr. Ben Ali as “temporarily” unable to serve.

Yet by late Friday night, Tunisian Facebook pages previously emblazoned with the revolt’s slogan, “Ben Ali, Out,” had made way for the name of the interim president. “Ghannouchi Out,” they declared.

News of the president’s departure followed, by just hours, the biggest battle yet between the protesters and security forces. Emboldened by a last-minute pledge from Mr. Ben Ali to stop shooting demonstrators, as many as 10,000 people poured into the streets. But when they paraded the body of a person said to have been shot elsewhere in the city, the waiting rows of police officers stormed the crowd, filling the streets with a thick cloud of tear gas and hammering fleeing demonstrators with clubs.

In a final bid to placate the protesters, Mr. Ben Ali had already pledged to hold parliamentary elections in six months. Those elections are now expected to include a presidential contest as well. But fair and open elections would be a first for Tunisia. Mr. Ben Ali, a former prime minister who took power in a bloodless coup, was only the second president of the country, which won independence from France in 1956.

On Friday night the capital remained under a tight curfew. Groups of more than two people were forbidden on the streets after 5 p.m., and no one was allowed out after 8 p.m. State news media warned that the police would shoot curfew violators on sight. Tanks and other security forces were deployed around the city, and the airport was shut down.

As night fell, gangs of security forces armed with machine guns and clubs could be seen chasing down stragglers. Dozens have died in clashes with the police over the last week, and continued gunshots were reported well after curfew on Friday night from several neighborhoods around the capital as sporadic riots continued.

The United States had counted Tunisia under Mr. Ben Ali as an important ally in battling terrorism. But on Friday, President Obama said in a statement that he applauded “the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people.”

“The United States stands with the entire international community in bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle for the universal rights,” he said, adding, “We will long remember the images of the Tunisian people seeking to make their voices heard.”

The antigovernment protests began a month ago when a college-educated street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in the small town of Sidi Bouzid burned himself to death in despair at the frustration and joblessness confronting many educated young people here. But the protests he inspired quickly evolved from bread-and-butter issues to demands for an assault on the perceived corruption and self-enrichment of the ruling family.

The protesters, led at first by unemployed college graduates like Mr. Bouazizi and later joined by workers and young professionals, found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president’s family. And the protesters relied heavily on social media Web sites like Facebook and Twitter to circulate videos of each demonstration and issue calls for the next one.