The Tunisian Revolution began in December 2010 when a young street vendor set himself on fire to protest corruption and lack of freedoms in Tunisia. This act sparked nationwide protests against high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, and lack of political freedoms and human rights under the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. After a month of increasingly violent clashes between protesters and security forces, Ben Ali fled into exile in Saudi Arabia on January 14, 2011, ending his 23-year rule and sparking the Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.
