Middle eastern riots continue to topple governments

By Brandon Eastman Posted April 20, 2011

Several countries throughout the Middle East have had one thing in common these past few months, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Protests about corrupt governments and government leaders have been an ongoing problem for quite some time now and don’t seem to be any nearer to an end.

The first protest of the long series was in the small North African nation of Tunisia when Mohamed Bouazizi committed suicide after officials arrested him for his attempts to sell vegetables in order to make a living. This unfortunate event caused President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to quit his office after there was an uprising of protests about alleged government corruption and poverty.

In Yemen, protestors demanded the immediate departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Numerous people have already been killed since the beginning in the midst of struggles between security forces and the demonstrators. President Saleh has since announced the firings of his entire cabinet and has ignored several calls from other leaders calling for his resignation.

As an important United States ally, Bahrain has also suffered protesting because of lack of ownership for economic problems, reduced political freedom, and job discrimination. King Hamad and his government had detained 400 people and the protestors have since been cleared from their camps.

President Hosni Mubarak was the next leader to be thrown into the spotlight, when Egypt broke out in protests, with Egyptian citizens wanting the resignation of Mubarak sooner rather than later. These protests lasted for several weeks and were driven by poverty, government corruption, and personal enrichment among the political elite.

More than 400 people were killed, while an additional 6000 people were injured during these extended protests. President Mubarak was summoned by the prosecutor for questioning about alleged corruption and the killings of numerous protestors. His sons and wives were also forbidden from leaving the country and all of their assets were frozen. In response to these protests, Mubarak finally gave the people what they wanted and resigned, to put all the chaos to rest.

In Libya, what started as mere protests have transformed into an extremely violent conflict between the rebels and the government. NATO has more recently gotten involved with this mini-war, in which several thousand people have been killed and countless more injured. The two sides are battling over territory, whereas the original protests began because of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s rule.

The only way for these protests to end is for the people to get what they want, which is usually for the leader of their respective countries to step down.

This has happened in all of these countries except for Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi is in denial about what is going on in his country. Protesting in the other countries has calmed down for the most part, but there will always be something for them to complain about.

Leave a Reply