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.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
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