1. Chokri Belaid, transliterated as Shokri Belaid, was a Tunisian politician and lawyer who was an opposition leader with the left-secular Democratic Patriots' Movement.
12 Facts About Chokri Belaid
1. 2.
Chokri Belaid was born in the town of Djebel Jelloud in Tunisia on 26 November 1964.
3.
Chokri Belaid worked as a lawyer and was part of the defence team of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during his trial for crimes against humanity.
4.
Chokri Belaid spoke out against a 2008 clampdown on miners, and was a noted political critic of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the strongman Tunisian leader in office for 23 years, whose 2011 self-exile to Saudi Arabia was the first tangible result of the Arab Spring uprisings.
5.
Chokri Belaid was a poet, and one of his poems is dedicated to Lebanese intellectual Husayn Muruwwa, who was assassinated by Islamists in the late 1980s.
6.
Chokri Belaid was the coordinator of the far-left Democratic Patriots' Movement, which was part of a 12-member umbrella organisation called the Popular Front.
7.
Chokri Belaid identified with pan-Arabism and was active opponent of normalizing relations with Israel.
8.
Chokri Belaid was succeeded by Ziad Lakhdhar as secretary general of the party.
9.
On 6 February 2013, as Chokri Belaid was leaving his house in the neighborhood of El Menzah 6, Tunis, he was shot four times in the head and chest by Kamel Gaghgadhi, who later fled with an accomplice on a motorbike.
10.
Chokri Belaid was rushed into the Ennasr clinic, and died there.
11.
Chokri Belaid had reportedly received multiple death threats in the days prior to his death.
12.
The assassination of Chokri Belaid prompted responses from the Tunisian intellectual community.