They called it the “slap heard around the Arab world.” And it never happened.
Or so said the Tunisian policewoman who was accused of hitting a man in the face four months ago, prompting him to set himself alight and triggering a chain reaction of popular anger against authoritarian Arab states.
“I’m innocent. I did not slap him,” Fadia Hamdi, the 36-year-old policewoman, told a court in the town of Sidi Bouzid on Tuesday before the judge dismissed the case.
The state news agency TAP says the case against Hamdi was closed after the vendor’s family withdrew its original complaint. The family says it acted in a gesture of tolerance and an effort to heal wounds suffered in Tunisia’s upheaval of recent months.
The police officer was accused of slapping 26-year-old vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in December. Bouazizi’s wares were confiscated on the grounds that he didn’t have a permit.
Humiliated, Bouazizi doused himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze in front of the governor’s office on Dec. 17. He died on Jan. 5 of full-body burns.
“All the money in the world can’t replace the loss of Mohammed, who sacrificed himself for freedom and for dignity,” said his brother, Salem Bouazizi. “We are proud of him.”
Horrified residents had staged a demonstration in support of Bouazizi’s act, an unusual eruption of public defiance in a country known for its political stability and sandy beaches — and where dissent was routinely quashed.
That demonstration spawned others by Tunisians angry over unemployment, corruption and repression. Police fired at protesters, fanning the anger, and the movement spread around the country. On Jan. 14, former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee.
Pro-democracy protests quickly erupted in several Arab countries. An uprising forced then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down less than a month later, and a rebellion is currently challenging Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
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