Tunisian collaborative painting his family. Ben Ali’s police took his fruit away and beat him. Mr. Bouazizi poured paint thinner on himself and lit a match. Word of his fiery death spread quickly and some of the Tunisian artists David Black had painted with risked their lives demonstrating in the streets. The Jasmine Revolution ended a month later on January 10, 2011 when Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the ruler of Tunisia for 23 years, fled the country. In November 2011, the new government of Tunisia gave permission for the Tunisian artists to travel to America as guests of David Black. The participation of
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali candidates were required to get endorsements from 30 political figures. Given the RCD's near-absolute dominance of the political scene, prospective opposition candidates discovered they couldn't get their nomination papers signed. The subsequent years saw the return of several Bourguiba-era restrictions. For many years, the press had been expected to practice self-censorship, but this increasingly gave way to official censorship. Amendments to the press code allowed the Interior Ministry to review all newspaper and magazine articles before publication. In 1992, the president's older brother Habib Ben Ali was tried in absentia in France for laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking, in