Yemeni socialist politician and advocate of unity and pluralism
On 28 December 2002 he was shot dead in Sanaa minutes after addressing the Islah party's conference; he was deputy secretary-general of the Yemeni Socialist Party.
Born in 1942 in the village of Kuhal in Yemen's Ibb province, he studied Islamic law in Dhamar and Sanaa and took part in the defence of Sanaa during the seventy-day siege. He helped found the Yemeni Revolutionary Democratic Party in 1968, was imprisoned for three years after the events of August 1968 in Sanaa, moved to Aden in 1971 and was elected to the Politburo in 1972. A founder of the Yemeni Socialist Party in 1978, he served as minister of culture and tourism in unified Yemen and became a leading advocate of human rights, political pluralism and the opposition coalition.
Career Timeline
- 1960Joined the Arab Nationalists' Movement
- 1968Co-founder and Central Committee member, Yemeni Revolutionary Democratic Party
- 1972Elected to the Politburo of the Yemeni Socialist Party
- 1978Founding member of the Yemeni Socialist Party
- 1993Minister of culture and tourism of unified Yemen
- 2002Deputy secretary-general of the Yemeni Socialist Party