Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Ben Ali "is not in the state that he's said to be in" and that "a meeting with his client took place under 'normal circumstances'". Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (, '; born 3 September 1936), commonly known as Ben Ali, is a Tunisian former politician who served as President of Tunisia from 1987 until his ousting in 2011. Ben Ali was appointed Prime Minister in October 1987, and he assumed the Presidency on 7 November 1987 in a bloodless coup d'état that ousted President Habib Bourguiba, who was declared incompetent. Ben Ali was subsequently
Hassib Ben Ammar "Democracy", as a published medium for the opposition Movement of Socialist Democrats, becoming the publication's director. The opposition party was at this time illegal and he found himself confronted by the authorities with more than twenty legal cases. In December 1987, a few weeks after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to power, Ben Ammar closed down Erraï. Sources close to the newspaper claimed that the new President was enraged by the publication of an article by Oum Zied entitled "The drift towards authoritarianism of the Ben Ali régime," banned the edition containing the article and launched a campaign