Husni al-Barazi

Husni al-Barazi (Arabic: حسني البرازي‎) (1895–1975) was a Syrian Kurdish politician who served as prime minister.[1]

Husni al-Barazi
حسني البرازي
15th Prime Minister of Syria
In office
April 1942 – January 1943
Preceded byHassan al-Hakim
Succeeded byJamil al-Ulshi
Personal details
Born1895
Hama, Ottoman Syria
Died1975 (aged 80)
Turkey

Origins and youth

Husni al-Barazi was born in the Syrian city of Hama into a prominent landowning family of Kurdish origin. He was educated in Istanbul where he attended classes with the Bedir Khan brothers.[2] Later he received a doctorate degree from the Sorbonne.

Political activity

During the French Mandate, Al-Barazi joined the Syrian opposition to French rule, but in 1926 he was arrested for his opposition activities and was exiled to Lebanon. Upon returning to Syria in 1928, Al-Barazi ran for parliamentary elections and was elected a Member of the Syrian Parliament.

Al-Barazi reportedly played a prominent role in the local hashish market.[3]

He was appointed Minister of Culture from 1934 till 1936, then Governor of Alexandretta (Iskenderun) from 1936 to 1938. In April 1942 he was appointed Prime Minister, but was removed from his position and isolated by the French authorities in January 1943, following which he again moved to Lebanon.

Downfall, exile and death

Al Barazi returned to Syria in 1946 and remained in his position as Member of Parliament during all the military coups that took place from the late forties until the mid fifties. During this period, he was accused of plotting against the state and was arrested several times. However, in 1948 he was Governor of Aleppo, and the following year became deputy to the military governor of Syria under Husni al-Za'im.[4] In Aleppo he co-founded the newspaper al-Nass, which was critical of Egypt's leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.

He went into final exile in 1954, when, while he was on a trip to Turkey, he was accused of plotting and conspiring against Syria, and was sentenced to death in absentia. In the late 1960s, al-Barazi was pardoned on account of his old age but never returned to Syria; he remained in exile between Lebanon and Turkey, where he died in 1975.

References
  1. Olmert, Josef; Ph.D. (2019-10-16). "KURDS, SYRIANS AND TURKS". Palm Beach Center for Democracy and Policy Research. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
  2. Henning, Barbara (2018). Narratives of the History of the Ottoman-Kurdish Bedirhani Family in Imperial and Post-Imperial Contexts: Continuities and Changes. University of Bamberg Press. p. 517. ISBN 978-386309-551-2.
  3. Khoury, Philip (1987). Syria and the French Mandate: the Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 596.
  4. Sami M. Moubayed (2006). Steel & Silk: Men and Women who Shaped Syria 1900-2000. Cune Press. pp. 203–. ISBN 978-1-885942-41-8.

Media related to Husni al-Barazi at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.