Hamadi Jebali

Jebali during the WEF 2012

Hamadi Jebali ( Arabic حمادي الجبالي Hammadi al-Jibali , DMG Ḥammādī al-Ǧibālī ; Born January 12, 1949 in Sousse ) is a Tunisian engineer, journalist and politician. From December 24, 2011 to February 19, 2013 he was Prime Minister of Tunisia for the moderate Islamist Ennahda movement.

education and profession

Jebali was born in Sousse in 1949. He studied engineering . He received his degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tunis and completed a master's degree in photovoltaics in Paris. As an expert in solar and wind energy technology, he founded his own company in his hometown of Sousse.

Political and journalistic activity

In 1981 he joined the Islamist movement of Tunisia, then called the Mouvement de la tendance islamique (MTI) . He was the director and editor-in-chief of "Al-Fajr" ("The Dawn") , the former weekly magazine of the Islamist Ennahda party . He was also a long-standing member of the board and general secretary of Ennahda.

Law Enforcement and Detention

In June 1990, Al-Fajr published an article by Rashid al-Ghannushi entitled "The People of the State or the State of the People?" Jebali was held responsible for the publication and received a suspended sentence and a fine of 1,500 dinars for incitement to violate the law and incitement to riot. In November 1990 the magazine printed the article by lawyer Mohammed Nouri "When will the military courts, which serve as special courts, be abolished?" This time Jebali was sentenced by a military court to one year in prison for insulting a judicial institution.

In May 1992 the government alleged that it had allegedly exposed plans by the Ennahda to kill President Ben Ali and establish an Islamic state; in August, Jebali and 170 other Ennahda supporters were charged with attempted coup. Jebali protested that he was unaware of the plot and claimed that he had been tortured, showing scars on his body as evidence. The trial has been described as unfair by observers from Amnesty International , Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Advocacy Committee. On August 28, 1992, Jebali was sentenced to 16 years in prison for membership in an illegal organization and attempted coup. The Court of Cassation upheld the judgment.

His detention conditions were harsh. For eleven of the 15 years he was in solitary confinement “without a book, without a newspaper, without a Koran”, as he reported during his first stay abroad, which took him to Berlin. Jebali went on hunger strikes several times to protest the detention conditions (torture) and his sentencing. Two of them lasted 36 days each. In February 2006, on the 50th anniversary of Tunisia's independence, Jebali was released on parole.

After the Tunisian revolution

After the revolution in Tunisia in 2010/2011 , Ennahda was legalized. Since then, Hamadi Jebali has been the party's general secretary and spokesman in public. In May 2011, at the invitation of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, he traveled to Washington, DC , where he met US Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman .

After the Ennahda victory in the Constituent Assembly election on October 23, 2011, the party nominated him for the office of Prime Minister. On December 24, 2011, he was appointed Prime Minister by the new President Moncef Marzouki, who had recently been elected by the Constituent Assembly . Jebali is included in the reform wing of his party.

After the assassination of the opposition politician Chokri Belaïd in early February 2013 and the resulting mass protests, Jebali proposed the formation of a non-party government of experts. The initiative was rejected, however, mainly from his own party. On February 19, 2013, Jebali announced his resignation from the post of Prime Minister in a televised address.

Because his party did not decide to support the previous interim president Moncef Marzouki in the election campaign for the Tunisian presidency at the end of 2014 , he resigned from his party on December 10, 2014 in protest. In early 2015 he refused to join the newly formed party of the defeated Marzouki and announced in April 2015 that he would found his own party, the Front for the Defense of Freedoms , in order to provide effective opposition to that supported by an extremely broad parliamentary majority Form Cabinet Essid .

Web links

Commons : Hamadi Jebali  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e} Martin Gehlen : Hamadi Jebali - Victims of Torture, Head of Government: "Establishing a Democratic State". Portrait. In: Der Tagesspiegel , December 15, 2011.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Case Information: Hamadi Jebali. In: Committee on Human Rights , nationalacademies.org (English). Retrieved December 18, 2011.
3. ↑ Abdelaziz Barrouhi: Hamadi Jebali: “Nous ne prétendons pas être les détenteurs de la vérité en Tunisie.” In: Jeune Afrique , May 13, 2011 (French).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Cecile Feuillatre: Hamadi Jebali: The Face of Moderate Islamism in Tunisia. In: National Post , October 26, 2011 (English).
5. ↑ Christoph Ehrhardt: Exhausted. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 8, 2013.
6. ^ Washington Ready to Play Soft Islam Card. In: Maghreb Confidential , May 26, 2011 (English).
7. ↑ Habib Toumi: Al Nahdha Likely to Front its Secretary General as Prime Minister. In: Gulf News , October 26, 2011 (English).
8. ↑ Tunisian Prime Minister Jebali resigns. In: Süddeutsche.de , February 19, 2013.
9. ^ Eileen Byrne: Major Political Shift to Come as Tunisia Votes for New President. In: The National , December 20, 2014.
10. ↑ Zainab Marzouk: Hamadi Jebali Resigns from Ennahda. ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Tunisia-Live.net , December 12, 2014. 
11. ↑ Hamadi Jebali: Je ne ferai jamais partie du mouvement créé par Marzouki. In: JawharaFM.net , January 6, 2015. Also Marwan Chahia on this relationship: Politique: Hamadi Jébali part en guerre contre Moncef Marzouki. In: Kapitalis.com , April 27, 2015.
12. ↑ Hamadi Jebali annonce le lancement prochain du Front de la Defense des libertés. In: BusinessNews.com.tn , April 26, 2015. Regarding assumptions already made about founding a party: Hamadi Jebali envisage de lancer un nouveau parti politique. In: Tuniscope.com , January 5, 2015.