18 January 2012 – person of the year

Person of the Year – London  Times leading article 28th December  2011

“This fruit seller did not aim to change the world” but it is clear that Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself alight was suffering oppression by his local authorities. 

He has set a benchmark that “it is not possible any longer for a regime to trust that overbearing power will be tolerated and will work” and also “His sacrifice exposed the limits of public lying“. 

It is all too easy to find similarities between what provoked his extraordinary gesture with the sorts of activity carried out by misguided and wrongfully informed actions by local authorities in the UK.

  “Because he did not have a licence, the authorities confiscated his produce” is familiar to many regimes in the UK who have adopted stringent and severe Authorisation Schemes that are now cited by HMG as being “illegal”, including Lords findings that Private legislations that include seizure, confiscation and forfeiture are no longer justified.

read more