2008 Tunisian protests
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The 2008 Gafsa strikes, also referred to as the Gafsa Social Movement, Gafsa events or the revolt in the Gafsa mining basin is an important social movement that shook the mining region of southwestern Tunisia—particularly the town of Redeyef, but also Moularès, Métlaoui, and Mdhilla—for nearly six months in 2008. These events took place in the phosphate-rich Gafsa mining basin, 350 kilometers southwest of Tunis, in a central region hard hit by unemployment and poverty. The protests were the most important social unrest known by Tunisia since the “bread riots” in 1983–84 and since the coming to power of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 1987.[1]