Tunisian Revolution a national television broadcast on , President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali criticized people for their protests calling the perpetrators "extremists and mercenaries" and warned of "firm" punishment. He also accused "certain foreign television channels of broadcasting false allegations without verification, based on dramatization, fermentation and deformation by media hostile to Tunisia." His remarks were ignored and the protests continued. On 29 December, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali shuffled his cabinet to remove his communications minister Oussama Romdhani, while also announcing changes to the trade and handicrafts, religious affairs, communication and youth portfolios. The next day he also announced the
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a military court on April 2013 for violent repression of protests in Sfax. Ben Ali was born in 1936 to moderate-income parents as the fourth of eleven children in the family. His father, Selma Hassen, worked as a guard at the port city of Sousse. He joined the local resistance against French colonial forces and was imprisoned. His expulsion from secondary school was the reason why he never completed his secondary education. He studied at the Sousse Technical Institute but failed to earn a professional certificate and joined the newly formed Tunisian Army in 1958. Nevertheless, after being chosen as