Mohsen Marzouk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mohsen Marzouk
محسن مرزوق
Personal details
BornJuly 1965
Sfax, Tunisia
Political partyMachrouu Tounes

Mohsen Marzouk (Arabic: محسن مرزوق; born July 1965) is a Tunisian politician. He holds a degree in political sociology and International Relations from the International Studies Association in Tunis.

Early life[edit]

Mohsen Marzouk was born in July 1965 and raised in a poor working-class neighborhood in the city of Sfax. At fourteen, he was expelled from school for his oppositional political activities. He managed to re-enter and finish high school in Sfax.[1]

At the University of Tunis, Marzouk was a leading student activist. In 1987, while still enrolled, he was arrested by Tunisia's secret police. He was interrogated and tortured for many days before being sent to a labor camp in the southern desert.[1]

When he was allowed to return, Marzouk remained politically active. He worked towards reinstating the General Union of Tunisian Students (UGET)[1] which after Ben Ali's rise to power became deeply divided over its further political course.[2] Marzouk was appointed to the UGET's executive bureau[1] while at the same time, he was conspiratively active for the outlawed leftist movement El Amal Ettounsi.[3]

Career[edit]

From 1989 on, he worked as a coordinator for the newly founded Arab Institute for Human Rights.[4] Since 2008 he has been secretary-general of the non-governmental Arab Democracy Foundation and member of the International Steering Committee of the Community of Democracies.[5]

Marzouk is one of the founders of Nidaa Tounes and was member of the party's Executive Committee.[4] As Beji Caid Essebsi's campaign manager in the 2014 presidential election[6] he announced Essebsi's victory in the runoff vote on 21 December,[7] stating that Tunisians were now turning the page of the transitional phase[8] and that Tunisia was now a stable democracy.[9] Marzouk’s faction within Nidaa Tounes supported a more assertive, secularist government.[10] Marzouk left the party in early January 2016[11] and later became part of Machrouu Tounes.[12]

Publications and working papers[edit]

  • Marzouk, M. (1997): The Associative Phenomenon in the Arab World: engine of democratisation or witness to the crisis? in: David Hulme and Michael Edwards (ed.): "NGOs, States and Donors. Too close for comfort?" New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. Republished: London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, ISBN 9781137355140.
  • Marzouk, M. (2003): Social Movements in Tunisia: Searching for the Absent. Arab Research Center, 2003.
  • Marzouk, M. (2005): Social Movements in Tunisia and the Democratization Process. Santiago: Community of Democracies, 2005. (archived)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Carpenter, Scott (2008). "Dissident Watch: Mohsen Marzouk". Middle East Quarterly. 15 (3).
  2. ^ Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (2005-11-01). "Tunisia: The General Union of Tunisian Students (l'Union générale des étudiants Tunisiens, UGET) (2003-2005)". Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  3. ^ Tavana, Daniel; Russell, Alex (October 2014). "Previewing Tunisia's Parliamentary & Presidential Elections" (PDF). Project on Middle East Democracy. p. 9. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  4. ^ a b وجه من المشهد السياسي: محسن مرزوق… [The face of the political scene: Mohsen Marzouk] (in Arabic). 2014-08-09. Archived from the original on 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  5. ^ "Mohsen Marzouk, Tunisia". Council for a Community of Democracies. Archived from the original on 2014-12-23. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  6. ^ "Tunisians vote for first freely elected president of post-Ben Ali era". Reuters. 2014-11-23. Archived from the original on 2015-11-19. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  7. ^ "Tunis : " Bajbouj Président ", a annoncé Mohsen Marzouk aux partisans de BCE". African Manager (in French). 2014-12-21. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  8. ^ "Présidentielle : Mohsen Marzouk annonce la victoire de Caïd Essebsi". Kapitalis (in French). 2014-12-21. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  9. ^ "Tunisie : La campagne de BCE proclame la victoire, Manser conteste". gnet.tn (in French). 2014-12-21. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  10. ^ "A rift in the ruling party may be the least of Tunisia's problems". The Economist. 17 November 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
  11. ^ Tarek Amara (8 January 2016). "Tunisia's ruling party faces splits as lawmakers quit". Reuters. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  12. ^ "Les dissidents de Nida Tounes lancent le parti du Projet de la Tunisie". Babnet Tunisie. 20 March 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohsen_Marzouk&oldid=1221127130"