He Will not See the Revolution

A 38 year-old French-Tunisian university professor, Hatem Bettahar, stepped out of a bookstore in Douz, Tunisia, on January 13th and was killed by a police bullet in the head. The police was shooting demonstrators in the street with live ammunition. He was an expert in computer network security (sensory network security). He taught in France, at the Technological University in Compiègne, worked at France’s prestigious research center, CNRS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and also taught at the University of Gabès, in Tunisia. He was the first and only university professor in computer science and telecommunications networks in Tunisia and had started a year ago a research unit at the Multimedia Institute of Gabès. Internet censorship in Tunisia has been all-pervasive under the regime of now ousted Ben Ali. 67 demonstrators had been killed by the time Ben Ali left the country to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. Let’s make no mistake: the Arab peoples have entered the phase of Revolution.

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