Lina Ben Mhenni
On 27 January 2020, Tunisian Internet activist, blogger and lecturer in linguistics at Tunis University Lina Ben Mhenni died at the age of 36 after a long battle with lupus, an auto-immune disease. She is internationally recognised for her work during the 2011 Tunisian revolution.
Born on 22 May 1983 to a middle-class family, Ben Mhenni started her blog A Tunisian Girl in 2007. Written in Arabic, French, and English, she was one of a number of bloggers who spoke out against Ben Ali's dictatorial regime. Her blog was censored and banned, and Tunisian police forces harassed her.
In January 2011, she covered the early weeks of the Tunisian Revolution from Sidi Bouzid Governorate in the interior of the country. Ben Mhenni was the only blogger present in the interior cities of Kasserine and Regueb when government forces massacred and suppressed protesters in the region. Her reports and posts provided uncensored information to other Tunisian activists and the international media. The same year, her book 'Tunisian Girl: A Blogger for an Arab Spring' that gathers tthese stories was published.
After the fall of the dictatorship in 2011, Ben Mhenni began teaching English at the University of Tunis and continued to work in tracking press freedom and human rights in the country. Along with her father, she started an initiative to create libraries in prisons to promote culture and counter terrorism.
In 2011, Ben Mhenni was reported to have been a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions and activism during the Tunisian Revolution, along with Egyptian human rights defenders Israa Abdel Fattah and Wael Ghonim. A couple of months after her death, the Delegation of the European Union to Tunisia launched the 'Prix Lina Ben Mhenni pour la liberté d’expression' (The Lina Ben Mhenni Prize for the Liberty of Expression) which honours the best articles defending the principles and values of democracy, the freedoms and rights shared by Tunisia and the European Union.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Selected publications
Enjeux de la narration d’une révolution à partir d’archives vidéo : instant tunisien: à la mémoire de Lina Ben Mhenni / Selma Zghidi.
In: Le bulletin de l'AFAS, 2021 (47), p.54-71
Tunisie : une révolution en pays d'islam / Yadh Ben Achour. - Genève : Labor et fides
[2018]
Les blogueuses tunisiennes: vecteur de la liberté de parole et de la démocratie participative / S. Ismaili.
In: E-révolutions et révolutions : résistances et résiliences / Jean-Jacques Lavenue. Villeneuve d'Ascq (Nord): Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2016, p. 119-126
Tunesischer Cyberaktivismus in Blog und E-Book : Sami Ben Gharbia und Lina Ben Mhenni zwischen Selbstbeschreibung und politischer Partizipation / Chantal Marquardt.
In: Textpraxis, 13 (2016) 2, Sonderausgabe 1
https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-34279480556
Perspectives d´une blogueuse révolutionnaire / Lina Ben Mhenni.
In: Rechtskulturen im Übergang : Legal Cultures in Transition. - Frankfurt am Main Bonn: Vittorio Klostermann, 2015
Cyberfeminism and Its Political Implications for Women in the Arab World / Rita Stephan.
E-International Relations, 23 August 2013
https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/42426
Le cyberactivisme au Maghreb et dans le monde arabe / Sihem Najar. - Paris [etc.] : Karthala [etc.], cop. 2013
Les réseaux sociaux sur Internet à l'heure des transitions démocratiques / Sihem Najar. - Paris [etc.] : Karthala [etc.], cop. 2013
Women of the Arab Spring: a conversation with Esraa Abdel Fattah and Lina Ben Mhenni / Jennifer Pedersen; Monalisa Salib.
In: International feminist journal of politics, 2013, Vol.15 (2), p.256-266
Youth and revolution in Tunisia / Alcinda Honwana. - London [etc.] : Zed, in association with International African Institute, Royal African Society, World Peace Foundation, 2013
Tunisian girl : blogueuse pour un printemps arabe / Lina Ben Mhenni. - Montpellier: Indigène; 2011.
Future belongs to youth! Youth: the present is yours! | Lina Ben Mhenni | TEDxLecce
Timeline of Tunisian women activists via DBpedia and Wikidata
Posted on 27 January 2023, last modified on 12 February 2023