The 66-year-old leader of the Congress for the Republic Party, dressed in his usual grey suit with a white shirt but no tie, thanked the assembly, saying he was "proud to carry the most precious of responsibilities, that of being the guarantor of the people, the state and the revolution."
Professor of medicine and political activist historical opponent of the deposed regime, Marzouki is president of the Congress for the Republic (CPR) since July 25, 2001. He attended high school in Tunisia and Morocco before being granted a university scholarship in France, where he received the Doctor of Medicine of the Faculty of Strasbourg. He is a former Internal hospitals in neurology. Back in Tunisia in 1979, he enlisted as a militant in the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH) founded in 1977.
He was elected member of its Steering Committee in 1985 and vice president in 1987 and unanimously elected president of the league in 1989. He presented his candidature for the presidential election on March 20, 1994 in order to "denounce the electoral farce and applicable law prohibit any application not approved by the Ben Ali regime." Arrested, he was imprisoned until July 1994, later released by the personal intervention of Nelson Mandela. He was banned from leaving Tunisia for several years.
Mr. Marzouki is a member of the steering committee of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo and an active member of the Tunisian section of Amnesty International.
He is president of the Arab Commission for Human Rights from 1996 to 2000 and spokesman of the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia from December 10, 1998 to February 16, 2001 Licensee from his position as professor of medicine at the Faculty of Sousse it is forced into exile for 10 years in France where he held various positions as an associate professor and doctor.
Bilingual writer, he published 16 books in Arabic and in French 4 dealing with community medicine, ethics, human rights and democratization in the Arab and Muslim countries.