Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to loosen restrictions on the press; for the first time state-controlled newspapers published statements from the opposition. In 1988, he changed the name of the ruling Destourian Socialist Party to the Democratic Constitutional Rally, and pushed through constitutional amendments that limited the president to three five-year terms, with no more than two in a row. However, the conduct of the 1989 elections was little different from past elections. The RCD swept every seat in the legislature, and Ben Ali appeared alone on the ballot in Tunisia's first presidential election since 1974. Although opposition parties had been legal since 1981, presidential
Lina Ben Mhenni Transplant Games, winning several medals Lina Ben Mhenni Lina Ben Mhenni (Arabic: لينا بن مهني) (born May 22, 1983) is a Tunisian Internet activist, blogger and assistant lecturer (i.e. instructor) in linguistics at Tunis University. Lina Ben Mhenni has been awarded the Deutsche Welle International Blog Award and El Mundo's International Journalism Prize Ben Mhenni's blog, "A Tunisian Girl", is written in Arabic, English, and French. During the rule of former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Ben Mhenni was one of the few bloggers to blog using her real name rather than adopting a pseudonym to protect her