Mbarka Brahmi at her Tunis home where her husband was assassinated on 25 July 2013
Mbarka Brahmi, 47, mother of five, has become a key spokesperson for the fight against fundamentalism and terror in Tunisia since the assassination of her husband Mohamed Brahmi at their Tunis home on 25 July 2013. Sometimes known as “Widow Courage”, along with Basma Belaid, wife of another slain Tunisian anti-fundamentalist Chokri Belaid, in this interview Mbarka Brahmi describes her late husband’s life, struggles and death.
At the time of his murder, Mohamed Brahmi was a member of the Tunisian Constituent Assembly, the body elected after the revolution in October 2011 to draft a new constitution. Born, like the revolution, in the Sidi Bouzid region, and from a poor, rural background, Mohamed Brahmi studied economics before founding what was meant to be a socialist and secularist “People’s Movement” in 2011. He later resigned from the movement after other leaders drifted close to Ennahdha, the then-ruling fundamentalist party. Both a left-leaning Nasserist and a devout Muslim, he launched a new party called the Popular Current in July 2013 shortly before his death.
