Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
Information
Tarek Sami Akawi was born in Sidon, Lebanon, on October 28, 1969, to a Palestinian refugee family originally from the depopulated village of Al-Birwa in the occupied Acre district. He is married and has two sons and three daughters. He completed his primary education at Al-Kifah School in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, and his secondary education at Al-Haydariya High School in the town of Al-Sarafand in southern Lebanon. He graduated from Al-Zaatari High School in Sidon in 1987. He earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the American University in Greece in 1991, and a bachelor's degree in political science and administration from the Lebanese University in Lebanon in 1997. He established the central communications network that brought telephone and internet services to the Ain al-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh refugee camps in southern Lebanon. In 2002, he founded Akawi Trading Company, a company specializing in general trading (contracting and real estate development).
Akawi was active in institutional work; he founded the Al-Islah Association for Charitable Work and Memorization of the Holy Quran, and was the Vice Chairman of its Board of Directors between (1997-2002), and he founded and chaired the Palestinian Human Rights Organization (Witness) between (1998-2002), and he founded and chaired the Palestinian-Lebanese Business Forum since 2008, and was elected to the General Secretariat of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad in February 2022.
He is active in defending the civil rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, particularly the rights to work and own property. To this end, he engages with members of the Lebanese Parliament and the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, and participates in numerous conferences, seminars, and meetings focused on this issue. Akawi believes in political and intellectual pluralism, and in freedom of opinion and expression without infringing on the rights of others. He also believes in the right of return for Palestinians to the lands and homes from which their ancestors were displaced, and he rejects the peace process because it does not guarantee the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
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