Zine El Abidine Ben Ali the central bank when she and her family fled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of her nephews, Imed Trabelsi, was arrested during the 2010–2011 protests in Tunisia. On 17 February 2011, it was reported that Ben Ali had suffered a stroke, and had been hospitalised for an indefinite period. Al Jazeera reported that a Saudi source has confirmed that Ben Ali has indeed sustained severe complications of a stroke and that he is in critical condition. The information has never been confirmed or denied by the Saudi Government. However, on 17 June 2011, Ben Ali's attorney, Jean-Yves Leborgne, stated that
Tunisian Revolution immolation and the subsequent heavy-handed response by the police to peaceful marchers caused riots the next day in Sidi Bouzid that went largely unnoticed, although social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube featured images of police dispersing youths who attacked shop windows and damaged cars. Bouazizi was subsequently transferred to a hospital near Tunis. In an attempt to quell the unrest President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali visited Bouazizi in hospital on 28 December 2010. Bouazizi died on 4 January 2011. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers (Spain's "El País", France's "Le Monde", Germany's "Der Spiegel",