Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
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Azmi Saleh Muhammad Al-Shuaibi was born in occupied Jerusalem on October 20, 1947. He is married and has two sons and a daughter. He completed his primary education in Jerusalem schools, including Al-Bakriyah, Khalil Al-Sakakini, and Abdullah Bin Al-Hussein. He attended secondary school at Al-Hashimiyah School in Al-Bireh, graduating in the scientific stream in 1967. He earned a bachelor's degree in dentistry from Alexandria University in 1972. He worked as a dentist in Al-Bireh from 1972 onwards and opened a clinic in Jabal Al-Hussein in Amman in the 1980s. In 2000, he co-founded the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability (AMAN) , where he served as Commissioner and later as an advisor to its Board of Directors. He is also a Commissioner for the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights.
He became involved in national activism from a young age, participating with a number of high school students in a meeting in Al-Bireh in 1967 to establish a branch of the General Union of Palestinian Students in the West Bank. Faisal Husseini attended the meeting representing the Arab Nationalist Movement. He joined the Arab Nationalist Movement, then the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and later the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He attended the first organizational meeting in Beirut in 1969 and was an activist in the Union of Palestinian Students at Alexandria University. He participated in establishing volunteer work committees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1973 and represented Ramallah on the Dental Association Council in 1974. He was elected to the Al-Bireh Municipal Council in 1976, on a list composed of members from the Democratic Front and the Communist Party. He became a member of the National Front in the second half of the 1970s, during which time he focused primarily on resisting the transfer of land to settlers.
He progressed in organizational responsibility within the Democratic Front until he became a member of its Central Committee, a member of the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and its delegate to the Palestinian National Council in 1988. After his deportation from Palestine, he worked in the Office of Occupied Homeland Affairs and became responsible for following up with the mayors. He was the Democratic Front's representative in the Intifada Leadership Committee abroad (headed by Khalil al-Wazir Abu Jihad and with the membership of Marwan Barghouti, Amin Maqbul, and Mahmoud Fanoun). At that stage, he was concerned with securing the needs of the Intifada inside. He was among those who met with the leadership of the Hamas movement abroad, represented by Ibrahim Ghosheh and Muhammad Nazzal. The meeting took place at the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Jordan, and the goal of the meeting was to try to bring Hamas into the unified national leadership.
He joined the Palestinian Democratic Union “FIDA” in the late 1980s and participated in the Washington negotiations in the early 1990s as part of a group representing the organization. He was part of the thinking team in the Palestinian negotiating delegation, which was led by Nabil Shaath and included Nabil Qassis, Kamil Mansour, Ahmed Al-Khalidi, and Yezid Sayigh.
He returned to Palestine in April 1993, along with thirty Palestinians, as part of the preparations for the Oslo phase. He was appointed Minister of Youth and Sports in 1994, and won a seat in the Legislative Council in the 1996 elections, within an electoral bloc he formed with Marwan Barghouti. He contributed to building the administrative and legal parliamentary work system, and was the head of the Budget and Financial Affairs Committee, then the head of the Economic Committee. He was part of the Legislative Committee that drafted the Basic Law that was approved by the Legislative Council, and he was tasked by the Presidency of the Legislative Council with drafting the amended Basic Law that added the Prime Ministership to the political system in 2003.
Al-Shuaibi is hosted in the media to comment on developments in the Palestinian issue, especially the problems of corruption within official and civil institutions. He has given many lectures, participated in seminars and conferences inside and outside Palestine that dealt with the Palestinian issue and its developments, and reform in official security and civil institutions. He has written a number of analytical articles, and presented interventions and working papers.
Al-Shuaibi was known for his outspoken criticism of corruption within the government apparatus and his calls for its eradication, for which he faced some harassment. He received the International Award for Excellence and Innovation in Combating Corruption at the 16th Annual Transparency International Conference held in Malaysia in September 2015.
Al-Shuaibi suffered during his life, as the Egyptian authorities pursued him on account of his national activities opposing the Rogers Plan. He was first arrested by the occupation forces in 1973 and subjected to harsh interrogation in Ramallah prison. He was then arrested seven times and isolated inside the occupation prisons more than once. The occupation authorities placed him under house arrest for six months in 1985. Then the occupation decided to deport him outside of Palestine on October 27, 1985. He was arrested two days later and informed of the deportation decision. His trial continued while he was in Nablus prison for one hundred days, until he was deported to Jordan on January 31, 1986. Ali Abu Hilal (Democratic Front, Abu Dis) and Hassan Abdul Jawad (Popular Front, Dheisheh Camp) were with him in deportation.
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