The government is very afraid of a regional uprising turning into a national one, so they're willing to do a lot to prevent that from happening. Arresting prote

The government is very afraid of a regional uprising turning into a national one, so they're willing to do a lot to prevent that from happening. Arresting protesters and censoring the news are stop-gap measures; in many cases they don't have much choice but to address whatever grievance was leading to protests in the first place. It's not a very efficient system, but frequently it does work somehow. I guess that's what the previous commenter meant.