The National Interest Foundation invites you to attend a dinner event with the former President of Tunisia, Dr. Mohamed Moncef Marzouki.

Disclaimer: NIF events are by email invitation only and are non-transferable. You will receive a confirmation email if you have been successfully added to our event attendee list upon registration. Those who do not receive a confirmation email will not be admitted. Also, please note that when registering for any of our events, all required fields must be properly filled out. We reserve the right to deny entry to those who fail to do so.

Event Synopsis: Democratic backsliding has continued in Tunisia as despot Kais Saied continues to consolidate his power. He has removed multiple democratic institutions with checks on his power. During this event, we will discuss the current events on the ground in Tunisia and things people are doing to combat Saied’s regime.

About our Speaker:

Mohamed Moncef Marzouki is a Tunisian politician who served as the fifth president of Tunisia from 2011 to 2014. Through his career he has been a human rights activist, physician and politician. On 12 December 2011, he was elected President of Tunisia by the Constituent Assembly.

Dr. Mohamed Moncef Marzouki was born in Grombalia, Tunisia in 1945, and followed his family into political exile in Morocco in 1961, because of his father’s opposition to President Habib Bourgiba. An excellent student, he won a scholarship to study in France, where he earned his medical degree at the University of Strasbourg in 1973, with specialties in neurology, internal medicine and public health. At Strasbourg, Dr. Marzouki wrote his thesis on human rights and medical experimentation under the supervision of Professor Marc Klein, a Holocaust survivor who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and who had a profound intellectual influence on him.

Dr. Marzouki was President of the Tunisian League for Human Rights from 1989 to 1994. In the early 1990’s, Dr. Marzouki founded the National Committee for the Defense of Prisoners of Opinion, which was declared illegal by then-President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali’s regime. In July 1994, announced his candidacy for President of Tunisia. That year, he was arrested and imprisoned, and held in solitary confinement for several months. Dr. Marzouki was released in 1995, after South African President Nelson Mandela appealed to Ben Ali on his behalf. For several years, Dr. Marzouki was denied a passport and prohibited from travelling abroad, and lived under constant surveillance. In 1998, Dr. Marzouki became the spokesperson for the National Council for Freedom in Tunisia, a post he occupied until 2001. In 2000, Dr. Marzouki was dismissed from his post as Professor of Public Health at the University of Sousse. In 2001, he founded the Congress for 2/2 the Republic (CPR), a political party that was banned by Ben Ali’s regime.

About our Moderator:

Khaled Saffuri is the Founder and President of the National Interest Foundation (NIF), a nonpartisan think tank and nonprofit organization established in April of 2018 which is focused on bettering relationships between the United States and countries across the globe through the promotion of smarter foreign policy. Mr. Saffuri has previously served as a Principal at Meridian Strategies providing international business and government clients with strategic and public affairs consulting services, and also founded and ran one of the United States’ prominent and most active organizations to represent the Middle East and Muslim-Americans. He has worked for many years with Members of Congress and has testified in front of Congressional Committees, advising them on international issues and leading Congressional delegations to the Middle East. Due to his extensive background and expertise, Mr. Saffuri is a regular contributor to a number of important media outlets in the United States and internationally including CNN, CBS, and BBC and contributes articles and written publications to outlets such as The Washington Post and The American Conservative.