Arab Spring: Where Are the Leaders Now?
What happened to the leaders whose power was challenged in the so-called Arab Spring that began in late 2010?
Here is a look.
- Egypt: Mubarak freed -Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11, 2011 after three decades in office and handed power to the army, following an 18-day revolt.
Mubarak was arrested that April, and succeeded in June 2012 by an Islamist, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president.
Morsi was in turn toppled by then army chief, now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after a single year in power marked by crises and political dissent.
Sentenced to life in prison in June 2012 on charges of involvement in the deaths of some 850 protesters during the uprising, Mubarak was acquitted by Egypt's top appeals court on March 2, 2017.
Aged 88, he was released from military hospital on Friday.
- Tunisia: Ben Ali flees -Month-long protests over poverty and unemployment forced Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his family to flee on January 14, 2011, after just over 23 years in power, in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings.
He went into exile in Saudi Arabia and, now 80, has maintained a low profile, communicating mainly via a Lebanese lawyer.
The Tunisian courts have since convicted him of a raft of offences in absentia, including corruption and incitement to violence against protesters during the uprising. He was sentenced to life in prison on the latter charge.
- Syria: Assad survives -Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is still in power.
Military support from Iran, Russia and Lebanon's Hezbollah have since 2015 turned the tables in his favour in a civil war sparked by the brutal suppression of protests against his rule which erupted in March 2011.
More than 320,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions forced from their homes.
Rebel groups that have received backing from Turkey, the Gulf Arab states and Western governments are still fighting Assad's forces but they have been overshadowed by jihadists of the Islamic State group and former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front.
- Libya: Kadhafi slain -Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi was captured and killed on October 20, 2011 after 42 years in power while trying to flee Sirte, his hometown, as NATO-backed rebels closed in. It was the climax of a revolt that began with protests in second city Benghazi that February.
Libya has since descended into chaos, with rival parliaments and governments vying for influence and militias fighting over territory and the country's vast oil wealth.
- Yemen: Saleh allies with rebels -President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in February 2012, following year-long protests and armed clashes, ending more than 33 years in power. His vice president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi took over and was subsequently elected president.
However, Saleh retained the loyalty of some of the best equipped units in the armed forces and when Huthi Shiite rebels overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014, his loyalists did nothing to stop them.
Saleh has since formed a close alliance with the rebels and despite a two-year-old military intervention by a Saudi-led coalition they retain control of Sanaa and much of the northern highlands and Red Sea coast.
- Bahrain: royals intensify crackdown -Bahrain's Sunni Muslim ruling family faced month-long protests led by the kingdom's Shiite majority in 2011 calling for a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.
It crushed them with deadly force after its Gulf allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent in troops.
Despite repeated calls from Western allies for compromise and reform, Bahrain's King Hamad has since dissolved the main Shiite opposition movement and sentenced many of its leaders to lengthy prison terms.
It has also moved to ban other opposition groups.
- Algeria: Bouteflika in wheelchair - In 2011, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika kept the lid on protests, announcing reforms while consolidating his grip on power, playing on fears of a repetition of the devastating civil war that rocked the country in the 1990s.
Re-elected as president in 2014 for a fourth term, Bouteflika, now 80, is rarely seen in public and, when he is, it is from a wheelchair and speaking with difficulty, after suffering a stroke in 2013.
- Morocco: King cedes some powers -In Morocco, King Mohammed VI was one of the first leaders to take stock of the Arab Spring revolts, announcing a reform of the constitution in March 2011 in the wake of a February 20 demonstration against corruption.
Following a referendum, he succeeded in keeping his political and religious preeminence, while granting more powers to the prime minister and parliament.
Source: Agence France Presse
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