Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, commonly known as Ben Ali or Ezzine (الزين), was a Tunisian politician who served as the second president of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011. In that year, during the Tunisian revolution, he was overthrown and fled to Saudi Arabia.
Habib Bourguiba was a Tunisian lawyer, nationalist leader and statesman who led the country from 1956 to 1957 as the prime minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia (1956–1957) then as the first president of Tunisia (1957–1987). Prior to his presidency, he led the nation to independence from France, ending the 75-year-old protectorate and earning the title of "Supreme Combatant".
Moufida Bourguiba née Mathilde Lorrain was the first wife of the President of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, and the inaugural First Lady of Tunisia from 1957 to 1961.
Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Khalid Karman is a Yemeni Nobel Laureate, journalist, politician, and human rights activist. She leads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005. She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that was part of the Arab Spring uprisings. In 2011, she was reportedly called the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution" by some Yemenis. She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Beji Caid Essebsi was a Tunisian politician who served as the sixth president of Tunisia from 31 December 2014 until his death on 25 July 2019. Previously, he served as the minister of foreign affairs from 1981 to 1986 and as the prime minister from February 2011 to December 2011.
Since the December 2010 revolution in Tunisia and protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began, Tunisian women have played an unprecedented part in the protests. Habib Bourguiba began instituting secular freedoms for women in 1956, such as access to higher education, the right to file for divorce, and certain job opportunities. Women in Tunisia enjoy certain freedoms and rights that are denied to women in neighboring countries, although the social norms have shifted since 2011.
The international reactions to the Tunisian revolution were generally supportive of the Tunisian people's right to protest, though several governments continued to voice support for President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali up to and even after his government's largely peaceful overthrow in January 2011.
France–Tunisia relations are the current and historical relations between France and Tunisia. France conquered Tunisia in 1881 and established the French protectorate of Tunisia, which lasted until Tunisia's independence in 1956. In 1957, France cut off financial aid totaling $33.5 million to Tunisia because of its support for neighboring Algeria's independence movements. At the time, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba noted "France and Tunisia will never again be exclusive partners". From 1987 until the 2011 Tunisian Revolution, France refused to criticize Tunisian President and ally Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, despite the deaths of numerous non-violent protesters. Ben Ali eventually resigned. In October 2023, a demonstration in front of the French embassy in Tunis, condemning the "solidarity" visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Israel. They demanded the expulsion of the French ambassador to Tunisia, Anne Gueguen, denounced the Emmanuel Macron's visit to Tel Aviv on Tuesday and accused Paris of supporting Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip.
Wassila Ben Ammar Bourguiba was the second wife of the former Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba and the First Lady of Tunisia from 1962 until 1986. She was called Majda (venerable).
The 1987 Tunisian coup d'état involved the bloodless ousting of the aging President of Tunisia Habib Bourguiba on 7 November 1987, and his replacement as President by his recently appointed Prime Minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The action was justified by reference to Bourguiba's failing health and Article 57 of the country's constitution. Reports later surfaced to indicate that the Italian intelligence services had been involved in planning it.
Amina Bouayach is a Moroccan human rights activist. Since December 2018, Bouayach has served as the president of the Moroccan National Human Rights Council. In this role, she affirmed in 2019 that there are no "political prisoners in Morocco."
Habib Bourguiba was officially born on August 3, 1903, in Monastir to Ali Bourguiba (1850–1925) and Fattouma Khefacha (1861–1913). Being their eighth and last child, his birth was a shame to his mother and a worry to his father, who conceived him in an advanced age. Born into a modest family, the young Habib was raised in a female environment and was marked by gender inequality. Despite his financial conditions, Ali Bourguiba decided to invest his money in the education of his son and therefore, avoid him his fate of being enrolled in the army. Likewise, he sent his son to Tunis, c. 1907, to live with his brother M'hamed, in order to study in elementary school of Sadiki. Separated from his mother at 5, he lived in modest conditions in the capital city, and the Jellaz Affair made a deep impression on him. In 1913, he obtained his Certificat d'études primaires to the relief of his father, exempting him from military service and permitted him to pursue his secondary education in Sadiki. However, in the same year, he lost his mother at the age of 10, which marked his entire life.
L'Action Tunisienne is a former Tunisian Francophone newspaper founded by Habib Bourguiba and published from November 1, 1932, to March 19, 1988. Working for the Destour party, at first, it later became part of the Neo-Destour then the Socialist Destourian Party, since its foundation on March 2, 1934, in Ksar Hellal.
The early political career of Habib Bourguiba began in the early 1930s when he joined the main political party of the Tunisian national movement, the Destour. His political beginnings were characterized with a "battle" in newspapers such as L'Étandar Tunisien and La voix du Tunisien, while defending Tunisia's integrity and the preservation of its national identity. Shocked by the 1930 International Eucharistic Congress of Carthage, Bourguiba and his mates decided to start a press campaign to denounce the event. They soon acquired an unprecedented popularity, and stood out from the elders of Destour. They attracted the hostility of settlers, eager to put an end to their activism and press campaign. However, Bourguiba and his friends founded their own newspaper, despite the colonial attempts to stop them. L'Action Tunisienne was thus created in order to defend the "little people" in a context of economic crisis, following the Great Depression.
The Habib Bourguiba bibliography includes major books about President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, his biography, presidency and policies.
The Ksar Hellal Congress was the first and founding congress of the Neo Destour party. The 1934 Neo Destour Congress was organized by the secessionist members of the Destour party, in Ksar Hellal, on March 2, 1934. It ended, that very night, with the creation of a new political party.
The Tunis tram boycott was a mass protest which began in Tunis on 9 February 1912. For more than a month, Tunisian Arabs refused to ride on the city trams until a series of demands were met. The boycott, though unsuccessful, is considered an important step in the development of the Tunisian nationalist movement.
Fethia Mokhtar Mzali was a Tunisian teacher and politician who became one of the country's first two female ministers in 1983. Her husband, Mohammed Mzali served as the country's Prime Minister from 1980 to 1986.
Sophie Bessis is a Tunisian-born French historian, journalist, researcher, and feminist author. She has written numerous works in French, Spanish, and English on development in the Maghreb and the Arab world, as well as the situation of women denouncing the identity imprisonment to which they are subjected. She is the recipient of the Paris Liège literary prize and was honored as Commandeur of the Order of the Republic.
Takreem is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 by Ricardo Karam to honor Arab individuals or organizations that have contributed to the development of their respective communities and to the betterment of the world in the fields culture, education, science, environmental studies, humanitarian services, and socio-economic development.
