Arab Spring/Catalogs
Persona
Bashir al-Assad
President of Syria since 2000, following his father's 30-year presidency. (website)(BBC profile).
Accused of repression and "massive violation of human rights[1].
Abdul Hakim Belhaj
De facto commander of Libyan rebel army. Former commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (BBC profile) (see interview [2])
Abdelaziz Bouteflika
President of Algeria since 1999. Autocratic head of a regime that has been accused by the UN Human Rights Committee of "massacres, torture, rape and disappearances".(CBS profile)
Muammar Gaddafi
President of Libya[3] from 1969 until his capture and death in October 2011.
Rachid Ghannouchi
Leader of the Tunisian Ennahda Party (Reuters profile)
Mustafa Abdel-Jalil
Chairman, Libyan National Transitional Council. Former Minister of Justice BBC profile
Mahmoud Jibril
Head of Government of the Libyan National Transitional Council and international spokesman. Former head of Libyan National Economic Development Board. Previously a lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh Daily Telegraph profile.
Mohammed VI
King of Morrocco since 1999. There have been some economic and social liberalisation measures during his reign, but he has retained sweeping powers (BBC country profile).
Hosni Mubarak
Deposed president of Egypt.
Ali Abdullah Saleh
President of the Republic of Yemen (website)(BBC profile).
Essam Sharaf
Interim Prime Minister of Egypt (BBC profile)
Mohamed Hussein Tantawi
Leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Egypt. Interim head of state since February 2011. Formerly Minister of Defence from 1991 and general commander for the armed forces from 1995.(BBC profile)(Carnegie Endowment profile).