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 am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“In the years of the Roman Republic, before the Christian era, Roman education was meant to produce those character traits that would make the ideal family man. Children were taught primarily to be good to their families. To revere gods, one’s parents, and the laws of the state were the primary lessons for Roman boys. Cicero described the goal of their child rearing as “self- control, combined with dutiful affection to parents, and kindliness to kindred.””
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)