Family
Ben Ali and his family are accused of corruption, which was a major contribution to the 2010–2011 Tunisian protests which led to the fall of his government. Many of Ben Ali's family members subsequently also fled the country. On 20 January 2011, Tunisian television reported that 33 members of Ben Ali's family had been arrested in the past week, as they tried to flee the country.
Leïla Ben Ali was the chair of the Basma Association, a group that promotes social integration and provides employment opportunities for the disabled. She was also the president of the Arab Women Organization, which works to empower women in Arab states. In July 2010, the first lady founded the “SAIDA” Association (named after her late mother) to improve care for cancer patients in Tunisia. She has three children: Nesrine, Halima and Mohamed Zine El Abidine. (Ben Ali has three daughters from his first marriage: Ghazwa, Dorsaf and Cyrine.) Leila Ben Ali allegedly took 1.5 tonnes of gold from the central bank when she and her family fled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of her nephews, Imed Trabelsi, was arrested during the 2010–2011 protests in Tunisia.
Read more about this topic: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“I acknowledge that the balance I have achieved between work and family roles comes at a cost, and every day I must weigh whether I live with that cost happily or guiltily, or whether some other lifestyle entails trade-offs I might accept more readily. It is always my choice: to change what I cannot tolerate, or tolerate what I cannot—or will not—change.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Having a thirteen-year-old in the family is like having a general-admission ticket to the movies, radio and TV. You get to understand that the glittering new arts of our civilization are directed to the teen-agers, and by their suffrage they stand or fall.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)
“Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described—and will be, after our deaths—by each of the family members who believe they know us.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)