Anonymous Rallies Behind Tunisian Protesters

Anonymous has launched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Tunisian official websites in response to the government's efforts to censor WikiLeaks.

The notorious group of Internet activists reacted to Tunisian administration's order to ban access to WikiLeaks and several of its mirrors sites after the organization published two US diplomatic cables touching on the issue of corruption in the country.

One of them, dating from 2008 is classified as secret and is entitled "Corruption in Tunisia: What's Yours Is Mine."

"President Ben Ali's extended family is often cited as the nexus of Tunisian corruption. Often referred to as a quasi-mafia, an oblique mention of "the Family" is enough to indicate which family you mean," the cable notes.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been Tunisia's president since 1987 and the ever increasing poverty generated by his regime has led public.

It all started after a small grocery store owner named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in early December because his stock was confiscated by the government.

The incident shocked and enraged the Tunisan population, which was already on the edge due to the current economic and political realities.

Violent street protests broke throughout the country and some of them led to serious injuries or even deaths in several cases.

Access to some foreign media outlets that covered the leaked Tunisia-related cables were also blocked by the country's Internet service providers on government order.

"The Tunisian government wants to control the present with falsehoods and misinformation in order to impose the future by keeping the truth hidden from its citizens. We will not remain silent while this happens," Anonymous said in a statement, The Tech Herald reports.

"Anonymous has heard the claim for freedom of the Tunisian people. Anonymous is willing to help the Tunisian people in this fight against oppression. It will be done," the group added.

Amongst the websites hit by the group during the past couple of days as part of it's new Operation: Tunisia campaign were pm.gov.tn, rcd.tn, benali.tn, carthage.tn, bvmt.com.tn, and ministeres.tn.

In addition, the Tunisian Prime Minister's website, pm.gov.tn, was defaced with an Anonymous logo and message. More attacks are expected, even against large Tunisian businesses accused of being involved in acts of corruption.