the unrest caused the president, zine el aberdeen ben ali to flee the country after 23 years of heavy-handed rule. authoritarian leaders of other arab countries in the region feared the chaos was spread, so they quickly announced emergency economic measures to deal with the anger at rising prices and unemployment. but prompted by events in tunisia, a number of people in egypt and algeria set themselves on fire, during anti-government demonstrations. crowds also took to the streets in yemen and jordan to protest against their governments. and on tuesday, young people in egypt used the internet to organize nationwide demonstrations. opposition groups joined in and protests on an unprecedented scale broke out. in a square in downtown cairo, more than 10,000 people called for the resignation of president mubarak, who has been in power for nearly three decades. they fought with security forces, and a number of people were either killed or injured. the egyptian government tried to stem the spread of the unrest by putting restrictions on the use of mobile phones and the internet, but the demonstrat