Mohamed Bouazizi - 2011, "Arab Spring", Tunisia

By setting himself on fire in protest against government corruption and widespread unemployment, Mohamed Bouazizi inspired Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution.

A hard-working man from a poor background, Bouazizi had been the main provider for his family since he was 10 years old, selling fruit at the market. He left school at 19 so he could support his younger siblings' education.

Bouazizi died on 4 January 2011, at the age of 26, after setting himself on fire in protest against a system that kept him from making a decent living. He had often been a victim of the Tunisian law-enforcement agents, who would fine him, confiscate his produce and his scales and, on the last occasion, even wrestled him to the ground. His family believe it was the humiliation, not the poverty, that led him to self-immolation after he went looking for justice only to have it denied to him. Bouazizi doused himself in fuel and lit a flame outside the gates of the governorate building in the small town of Sidi Bouzid. A popular man, known for giving away produce for free to poorer families, and whose plight struck a chord with many, his act prompted protests that quickly spread, with Tunisians from all walks of life taking to the streets against a corrupt government, high unemployment and restrictions on their freedom.

Bouazizi was still alive, in agony and wrapped in bandages from head to toe, as the authoritarian regime of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in power since 1987, began to fall.

Ten days after Bouazizi's death, Ben Ali was forced to resign and leave the country as demonstrators marched in Tunis, many of them carrying Bouazizi's image.

His family take solace in the knowledge that his death was not in vain, as his action spurred a people's revolution and shook up despotic governments in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world. It spread awareness among Arab youths that they could voice their frustrations and fight for their dignity when faced with injustice, corruption and autocratic rule.

The Arab Spring and its early optimism have stalled and some of its gains have been reversed, but its birthplace, Bouazizi's Tunisia, continues determinedly on its path to democracy and freedom of thought, despite fatal terrorist attacks and security fears.