In early 2011, a wave of protests spread across the Middle East. Large numbers of demonstrators took to the streets to express frustration with ageing and corrupt dictators, under whom unemployment and poverty were widespread. Prices were rising, police abuse and torture were rampant and the grip on freedom of speech was tightening.
Thousands agreed they wanted change, but each country had different ideas for how this change would be brought about. In Jordan and Morocco, protestors called for reform under the existing monarchies. In Egypt and Tunisia, demonstrators called on the president to stand down.
Five years have passed since those protests erupted. The Syrian conflict has entered its fifth year and Bashar Al-Assad is still President. Egypt is under military control and its citizens face an unprecedented crackdown. Morocco and the Gulf countries, meanwhile, have largely weathered the storm.
Middle East Monitor takes a look at the Arab Spring countries five years on.
I will die as a martyr at the end … I shall remain, defiant. Muammar is leader of the revolution until the end of time.
The law will be applied in all firmness
It [Egypt] will remain a dear land to me. I will not leave it nor depart it until I am buried in the ground. Its people will remain in my heart…
Muammar Gaddafi is history, resistance, liberty, glory, revolution.
Without me, Yemen will turn into a second Somalia
I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.
We will fight to the last drop of blood.
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The Free Officers Movement, a group of army officers, overthrew the British-installed monarchy in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Since then all of Egypt's presidents have been members of the movement, until Mohammed Morsi was elected on 24 June 2012.
Hosni Mubarak was sworn-in as President of Egypt in October 1981 after Anwar Sadat was assassinated. Under Mubarak the country remained under martial law. Unemployment and poverty were widespread, as was corruption, police torture and abuse. Freedom of press and speech was limited. After 30 years in power, Mubarak was ousted on 11 February 2011 after an 18-day uprising during which protestors demanded he step down.
During the 18 day uprising, 846 people were killed.
Over 12,000 civilians were brought before military tribunals between 25 January 2011 and 30 June 2012.
Live ammunition, tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, rocks, men on horse and camel back charged into the crowds and whipped the protesters.
As a result of the crackdown on all members of the opposition and the press in Egypt many have fled the country. Exact figures are not available.
On 3 July 2013, the military deposed President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected President, who has since been sentenced to death. The coup was led by Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who is now President. Sisi has led an unprecedented crackdown on opposition to his rule and arrested, tortured, sentenced to death and disappeared thousands of secularists and leftists, coming down particularly severely on members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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In 1958 military officers launched a coup and overthrew the British installed monarchy. In 1963 the Arab nationalist Ba'ath Party seized power and in 1979 Saddam Hussein succeeded Ahmed Hassan Bakr. Saddam remained president of Iraq until the American-led invasion in 2003, when he was captured and later hanged. Nour al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006, stood down in 2014 and was succeeded by Haider Al-Abadi.
Nouri al-Maliki was the Prime Minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014. He is secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party and is currently the Vice President of Iraq. Al-Maliki had been in exile since 1979 and returned in April 2013 following the toppling of Saddam's regime.
There were 45 deaths in Iraq during the 2011 protests.
Hundreds were arrested during Iraq’s Arab Spring. Exact figures are not known.
Helicopters, machine guns, armed vehicles, military.
Prior to the Arab Spring uprising there were approximately 1.5 million Iraqi refugees.
Since taking over Mosul in June 2014, Daesh controls vast swathes of Iraqi territory near the Syrian border. Since 8 August 2014, a US-led coalition has launched thousands of air strikes against Daesh targets in Iraq. The UK launched its first air strikes in Iraq on 30 September 2014. Following elections in 2014 Haider al-Abadi became the new Prime Minister.
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Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya from 1969 when he seized power through a coup and overthrew the monarchy. He was killed on 20 October 2011, after having ruled the country for 42 years. This was eight months after anti-government protests began.
Muammar Gaddafi seized control of the Libyan government in 1969 in a bloodless military coup. He ruled as an authoritarian dictator for more than 40 years before he was overthrown in 2011. In his early days of rule, his views were largely influenced by pan-Arabism. Opposed to US interests, Gaddafi won little support from Washington and the West. This only got worse after the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. A series of US sanctions were imposed on Libya after Gaddafi's initial refusal to hand over two Libyan suspects. Libya eventually acknowledged responsibility, agreeing to compensate the relatives of the victims, helping Gaddafi ease back into the international community.
There is a lack of reliable data regarding the death toll. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project listed 6,109 fatalities from 15 February to 23 October 2011, of which 1,319 died prior to NATO intervention. The Uppsala Conflict Data Programme, a public data resource that includes information on different types of organised violence, reported that between 1,914 and 3,466 people were killed during the 2011 fighting.
There are few accessible figures on the number of political prisoners arrested during the uprising in Libya. However, a Telegraph article published at the time quoted the National Transition Council saying that more than 20,000 people had been rounded up and held in detention centres in the first six weeks of the uprising. The Red Cross was routinely prevented access to Gaddafi’s “hidden prisons”. A disused tobacco factory is one of the most notorious places of detention. Inmates were reported to have to stand 10 deep and were fed just half a loaf of bread and a bottle of water a day. Torture was common place.
When protests broke out in Libya, the government's security forces responded by opening fire on the protesters. As the protests grew, Gaddafi pledged to chase down the "cockroaches" and "rats" who had taken up arms against him. A brutal conflict began, during which, according to Human Rights Watch, pro-Gaddafi forces indiscriminately shelled civilian areas, arrested thousands of protesters and others suspected of supporting the opposition, holding many in secret detention, and carrying out summary executions. He reportedly hired mercenaries from other African countries to brutally control the population.
Libya has been in conflict since the NATO-backed revolt that overthrew Gaddafi. Armed groups allied to Libya's rival governments - one a militia-backed self-declared administration that took power in Tripoli after the internationally recognised government of Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni fled to Tobruk, in eastern Libya - are locked in a battle for control of the oil-rich nation. Members of Libya's warring factions signed a peace deal in December that could pave the way for British troops to help them fight an attempted take-over of the country by Daesh, which has gained a foothold in the country with the help of the instability of the civil war. But, whether the deal will be able to work in practice remains to be seen.
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Syria gained independence from France in 1946. A number of coups rocked the country until the Ba'ath Party Military Committee seized power in 1963. Hafez Al-Assad initiated a coup in 1970, what he labelled "the corrective movement", and remained president of the country for the next 30 years.
His son Bashar took over as head of the Assad dynasty in 2000 when his father died, where he remains today.
Bashar Al-Assad took over power from his father Hafez Al-Assad in 2000. Hafez had led Syria for three decades. While in his early days of leadership hundreds of political prisoners were released and the first independent newspapers for more than three decades began publishing. The Damascus Spring, as it became known, was short lived and he soon returned to his father’s method of ruthless suppression to keep hold of power.
In the first nine months of the uprising, the UN estimated that the death toll exceeded 5,000 people. Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, estimated at the time that 300 children were amongst those killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported in 2015 that an estimated 200,000 Syrians have been arrested by government forces since the uprising began in 2011. Nearly 13,000 Syrians, including 108 children, have been tortured to death in prison.
Security forces used water cannons and teargas against the protesters before moving onto live fire. In the early days of the uprising, security forces killed hundreds of protesters and arbitrarily arrested thousands, subjecting many of them to brutal torture in detention. The security forces routinely prevented the wounded from getting medical assistance and imposed sieges depriving the population of basic services.
According to the UN, as of September 2015 more than half of all Syrians have been forced to flee their homes, with 7.6 million displaced within Syria and over four million living as refugees in neighbouring countries.
It is nearly five years since the first protests in Syria. The United Nations declared the Syria conflict a civil war in June 2012. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad still clings to power although his control over the country has significantly waned. Today, over half of the country’s population has fled and the death toll continues to rise. The UK has recently joined coalition efforts to bomb the extremist group Daesh, which has conquered alarming amounts of territory in a small amount of time.
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Habib Bourguiba led the struggle for Tunisian independence from France, which was achieved in 1956. Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali succeeded Bourguiba in 1987 after having doctors declare Bourguiba medically unfit to rule. On 14 January 2011 Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia; demonstrators had asked him to stand down during protests in the country that had been ongoing since December 2010.
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for 23 years before stepping down in January 2011 and fleeing to Saudi Arabia with his immediate family amid a wave of protests that sparked what became known as the "Arab Spring".
Ben Ali was born in 1936, near the city of Sousse, and was, in his youth, part of the resistance to French colonial rule, for which he was imprisoned. After completing his education in France and the US, he served in the military and the diplomatic service in Poland before becoming Tunisia's interior minister in 1986. A year later, he became the prime minister and later launched a coup against Tunisia's first post-independence leader, President Habib Bourguiba, becoming president himself.
As president, Ben Ali was recognised for delivering stability and economic growth and for having a progressive stance on women's rights. However, high youth unemployment levels increased under his rule and he was widely criticised for suppressing political freedoms. Ben Ali promised transition towards democracy, but he was elected twice unopposed and the constitution was changed twice so he could continue to serve. Even after multi-party presidential elections were introduced in 1999, Ben Ali still won huge majorities and elections were deemed unfair.
According to the United Nations, at least 300 people were killed during the Tunisian uprising.
During the protests, dozens of protesters, activists, and journalists were arrested. On 20 January 2011, the new interim government announced that all political prisoners would be freed. It also recognised all previously banned parties, with the exception of Hizb ut-Tahrir and a few other parties.
Uprisings saw police, armed security forces and snipers crackdown on protesters using rubber and live bullets, tear gas canisters, and water cannons that were used to try to disperse the crowds.
No refugees. Members of banned political parties in exile were able to come back to Tunisia after being banned during the time of Ben Ali.
After the fall of Ben Ali on 14 January, there were three interim governments before the first democratic elections took place in 2011. In the first free and fair elections, leading to the formation of the first democratic government in late 2011, the Ennahda party won 37% of the overall vote and made a power sharing agreement with left-wing socialists and secularists from the Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol parties, with veteran Tunisian politician Moncef Marzouki being appointed as president and Mustapha Ben Jafar taking control of the Constituent Assembly. In turn, Hamadi Jebali, then of Ennahda, was appointed prime minister.
Nidaa Tounes, a secularist political party founded in 2012, now rules the country after having won a plurality of seats in the October 2014 parliamentary election. Its founding leader Beji Caid Essebsi is now acting president in Tunisia after being elected in 2014. The ruling Nidaa Tounes party recently lost its majority in the Tunisian Parliament and faces an internal split after 31 Nidaa Tounes deputies resigned in the last couple of months.
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The Republic of Yemen was founded in 1990 when South Yemen, controlled by the British until 1967, and North Yemen, merged. Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled the country from 1990 to 2012, having ruled North Yemen for 12 years before that. In February 2012 Saleh stood down after 33 years in power, the fourth leader to be overthrown in the region after protests.
Ali Abdullah Saleh was president for 33 years. Pre-reunification, he was president of North Yemen from 1978. During his rule post-1994 unification, he was well known for suppressing southern Yemenis with his bureaucracy. He imposed tight restrictions on freedom of speech and was financially corrupt. Despite Yemen being the poorest Arab country, Saleh’s worth is $60bn, making him amongst the richest dictators in modern history.
2000 people killed during the protests.
Number of Political Prisoners since protests have started The number of prisoners is estimated to be in the thousands, although a specific figure is not available.
Tear gas, live ammunition, tanks, tasers, batons, knives and rifles
This figure is unknown as it is constantly fluctuating as the conflict progresses.
There is currently a war raging in Yemen which aims to get rid of the Houthis, a rebel movement which took over Sana’a, who Saleh has aligned with. Tribes and local resistance are now at the forefront of the fight against Houthi control; with backing from a Saudi coalition. There is currently a humanitarian crisis in place. An estimated 80% of Yemenis are in need of at least one form of aid. Yemen’s third most important city, Taiz, is now under a Houthi/Saleh siege. Al-Qaeda and Daesh are also growing in southern Yemen, due to a security vacuum.
