Politics of Tunisia was introduced by President Bourguiba in 1956. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was criticized for the low levels of democracy and freedom of expression in the country by Amnesty International and various other organizations. which documented restrictions of basic human rights and obstruction of human rights organizations. "The Economist"'s 2008 Democracy Index ranked Tunisia 141 out of 167 countries studied and 143 out of 173 regarding freedom of the press. Later in his rule repression became more brutal, corruption more visible and the economy more stagnant. The Jasmine Revolution overthrew President Ben Ali in 2011—marking the beginning of the
Hassib Ben Ammar "Democracy", as a published medium for the opposition Movement of Socialist Democrats, becoming the publication's director. The opposition party was at this time illegal and he found himself confronted by the authorities with more than twenty legal cases. In December 1987, a few weeks after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to power, Ben Ammar closed down Erraï. Sources close to the newspaper claimed that the new President was enraged by the publication of an article by Oum Zied entitled "The drift towards authoritarianism of the Ben Ali régime," banned the edition containing the article and launched a campaign