Latifa Ibn Ziaten

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Latifa ibn Ziaten (2016)

Latifa Ibn Ziaten (born January 1, 1960 in Rhili, Tétouan , Morocco ) is a Moroccan-French political activist. In 2012 she founded an interfaith peace organization in France . Her son Imad was the first French military man to be murdered by an Islamist assassin .

Life

Latifa Ibn Ziaten with US Secretary of State John Kerry (2016)

The practicing Muslim moved from Morocco to France in 1977 and married Ahmed Ibn Ziaten, who was then working for the SNCF railway company in Toulouse . Their five children included their son Imad Ibn Ziaten (born 1981), who was a member of the 1st Paratrooper Regiment of the French Army in Francazal . She works at the reception and museum supervisor at the Art Museum in Rouen .

Death of her son

Her son was killed in the series of attacks in Midi-Pyrénées in March 2012. He was murdered in the head on March 11th while walking out of a sports hall in Toulouse in plain clothes. He wanted to sell a motorcycle there privately and had arranged to meet the assassin for this. Shortly after the murder of her son, she visited the home of the assassin Mohammed Merah in the Les Izards-Trois Cocus district in the north of Toulouse. There she came across a group of young people who hailed the assassin as a hero and martyr of Islam. When they learned from her that he had murdered her son, they apologized.

engagement

Inspired by this encounter, she decided in April 2012 to found the Association Imad Ibn Ziaten pour la Jeunesse et la Paix (German: Imad Ibn Ziaten Youth and Peace Organization ). The association aims to bring young people in difficulty closer to the religious neutrality of the state and the dialogue between religions. The actor Jamel Debbouze took over the guarantee for the club and the Parisian local politician Christophe Girard supported the club locally.

In February 2014, Interior Minister Manuel Valls and the umbrella organization of French Jewish organizations (Crif) recognized the work of the association with an award. She has been promised annual financial support from the French Ministry of Education.

Public honors

In January 2015 she was invited by President François Hollande to the Great Synagogue of Paris to light a candle in honor of the seventeen victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the attack on Porte de Vincennes . In July 2015 she was made a Knight of the French Legion of Honor .

On November 19th, the Chirac Foundation presented the Association Imad Ibn Ziaten pour la Jeunesse et la Paix with the 2015 Conflict Prevention Prize. This honored Latifa Ibn Ziaten's efforts to promote interreligious dialogue and conflict minimization, as well as her fight against the radicalization of unemployed Muslim youth.

In 2016 she received the International Women of Courage Award .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Merah victim Imad Ibn Ziaten 'refused to lie down. In: BBC News , January 18, 2013 (English).
  2. ↑ Ondine Millot: Latifa Ibn Ziaten. Imad, “in memoriam” In: Liberation , October 14, 2012 (French).
  3. ↑ Series of murders shocked France. In: Spiegel Online . March 19, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Éric Pelletier: La famille d'une des victimes de Merah lance une association contre la radicalization. In: L'Express , June 16, 2012 (French).
  5. ↑ a b Toulouse: hommage du Crif à Latifa Ibn Ziaten en présence de Valls. In: LCP - Assemblée nationale , February 27, 2014 (French).
  6. ^ Journal officiel de la République Française. In: legiondhonneur.fr , p. 8, July 14, 2015 (French, PDF ).
  7. ↑ Foundation IMAD IBN ZIATEN ( Memento of 8 December 2015, Internet Archive ), Foundation Chirac , awards ceremony and prize for conflict prevention 2015 .
  8. ↑ US Department of State - Biographies of 2016 Award Winners , accessed April 3, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Ibn Ziaten, Latifa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Moroccan-French activist
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Rhili ( Tétouan , Morocco )