Photo Gallery A Slap Heard Around the Arab World
Then-Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali visits Mohamed Bouazizi at a Tunis hospital on Dec. 28. Bouazizi, a fruit vendor who set himself on fire after police confiscated his wares and his electronic scale, died days later.
Ben Ali was forced to flee Tunisia 10 days later under growing protests.
Protestors hold a portrait of Bouazizi during a demonstration in front of the government palace in Tunis on Jan. 28.
Mohamed Bouazizi's mother visits her son's grave, a gray block of cement at the edge of a family cemetery.
As each day passes, Bouazizi's mother, also pictured here at Mohamed's grave, becomes less and less like a real person. She seems to be in the process of transforming herself into a monument of grief, the mother of a holy figure.
