North Africa Sees Wave of Fiery Copycat Suicides

Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania all see self-immolations as in Tunisia
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 17, 2011 12:44 PM CST
North Africa Sees Wave of Fiery Copycat Suicides
A monitor displays video of 48-year old Abdou Abdel-Monaam Hamadah, at a Cairo hospital, Jan. 17, 2011. Hamadah set himself on fire Monday outside the country's parliament in a personal protest.   (AP Photo)

A restaurant owner screaming anti-government slogans set himself on fire outside the Egyptian parliament in Cairo today, in the latest of several attempted self-immolations mimicking the one that set off Tunisia’s uprising last month. But security officials, with the help of passing motorists, doused the blaze with fire-extinguishers, thwarting the suicide attempt, the AP reports. Today also saw a man set himself on fire inside his car in Mauritania, and two light up in Algeria.

Algeria has now seen a total of seven men set themselves on fire. The protesters had various reasons for their actions—one terminally-ill Algerian was protesting medical costs, while the Cairo man’s grievance was apparently the price of bread—but all seem to be imitating Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old whose death set off massive protests that have captivated the Arab world. "Are we now seeing a trend?" asks Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy. "It's a shocking, desperate tactic that instantly attracts attention, revulsion, but also sympathy." (More Tunisia stories.)

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