{{Short description|Algerian politician and feminist}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Khalida Toumi | image = Khalida Toumi.png | order = Minister of Culture | term_start = 17 June 2002 | term_end = 5 May 2014 | predecessor = {{ill|Mohammed Abbou|ar|محمد عبو (سياسي جزائري)}} | successor = Nadia Labidi | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1958|3|13|df=y}} | birth_place = Ain Bessem, Bouira, Algeria | alma_mater = {{ubl|University of Algiers|École Normale Supérieure}} | spouse = | party = National Liberation Front | profession = Teacher, activist, politician }} '''Khalida Toumi''' ({{langx|ar|خليدة تومي}}) (born 13 March 1958), aka '''Khalida Messaoudi''' ({{langx|ar|خليدة مسعودي}}), is an Algerian politician.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last1=Zoubir |first1=Yahia |last2=Fischbach |first2=Michael R. |title=Toumi, Khalida (1958–) |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/toumi-khalida-1958 |access-date=2024-07-21 |website=Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa at Encyclopedia.com}}</ref> She was the Minister of Communication and Culture until April 2014. She is also a feminist activist, and a pioneer of Algerian feminism.<ref>[http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/cinq-femmes-au-gouvernement-18-06-2002-2003174785.php Cinq femmes au gouvernement] (in French). ''Le Parisie''n. 18 June 2002.</ref> In 2022, she was convicted of corruption and sentenced to six years in prison.<ref name="Corruption">{{cite news |title=Ex-Algeria minister jailed for graft |url=https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220408-ex-algeria-minister-jailed-for-graft/ |access-date=24 July 2022 |publisher=Middle East Monitor |date=8 April 2022}}</ref>
==Early life== Khalida Toumi was known as Khalida Messaoudi ou la soufadja before she reclaimed her maiden name.<ref>{{cite book |author=Messaoudi |first1=Khalida |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q8Ty2UdljAcC&q=Unbowed:+An+Algeria+Woman+Confronts+Islamic+Fundamentalism |title=Unbowed: An Algeria Woman Confronts Islamic Fundamentalism |last2=Schemla |first2=Elisabeth |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=1998 |isbn=9780812216578 |location=Philadelphia}}</ref> She was born in 1958 in Ain-Bessem, Kabylie,<ref name=":0" /> in the north of Algeria and entered the University of Algiers in 1977 to pursue a degree in mathematics.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Talhami |first=Ghada Hashem |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ddqaCdZdZ0C&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA326 |title=Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa |date=2013 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8108-6858-8 |pages=326 |language=en}}</ref> After graduating from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, she taught mathematics until 1993.<ref name=":1" /> Her brother is Alek Baylee Toumi,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sueur |first=James D. Le |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7SxJEAAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA310 |title=Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics During the Decolonization of Algeria, Second Edition |date=2021-10-19 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-1-4962-2677-8 |pages=310 |language=en}}</ref> the Algerian academic, author and expert on French and Francophone issues.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alek Toumi |url=https://www.uwsp.edu/directory/profile/alek-toumi/ |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250111124708/https://www.uwsp.edu/directory/profile/alek-toumi/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
== Early career == As a feminist activist, in 1981, she founded the Collectif féminin (Women's Grouping)<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Maamri |first=Malika Rebai |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9-eKDwAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA125 |title=The State of Algeria: The Politics of a Post-Colonial Legacy |date=2015-10-12 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-0-85772-601-8 |pages=125 |language=en}}</ref> not only to oppose the ministerial interdiction on Algerian women leaving the country unless accompanied by a male family member,<ref name=":2" /> but also to oppose state endorsement of the discriminatory (seen by her) Algerian Family Code, which the National Assembly eventually adopted in 1984.<ref name=":1" /> Following the adoption of this code, Toumi presided over the Association for Equality between Men and Women,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> founded by a group of Trotskyist militants. In 1985, Toumi co-founded and became a member of the executive committee of the Algerian League of Human Rights. She later distanced herself from the Trotskyist militants and in 1990 founded the Independent Association for the Triumph of Women's Rights.<ref name=":0" />
Toumi staunchly opposed Islamist ideology and endorsed the cancellation of the January 1992 legislative elections, which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win.<ref name=":0" /> She considered the FIS to display "absolutely all the classic ingredients of totalitarian populist movements." The FIS condemned her to death in 1993,<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Crowley |first=Patrick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cHVvEAAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA69 |title=Algeria: Nation, Culture and Transnationalism: 1988-2015 |date=2017-07-17 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-78694-809-0 |pages=69, 102, 261 |language=en}}</ref> and she was injured in a June 1994 bomb attack on a secularist demonstration.<ref name=":0" />
Toumi continued her opposition and traveled to Western countries to provide an anti-Islamist and anti-terrorist perspective.<ref name=":0" /> In 1993, Toumi published ''Une Algérienne Debout (Unbowed: an Algerian woman confronts Islamic fundamentalism)'', which was translated into English in 1998.<ref name=":0" /> In 1998, she was awarded the Liberal International Prize for Freedom and an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.<ref name=":0" />
A member of the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD), she won a seat in the National Assembly and served as the RCD's national vice president for human rights and women's issues. After profound disagreements with the RCD's president Saïd Sadi, she severed relations with the RCD in January 2001, at the peak of the crisis in her native Kabylie; she was subsequently expelled from the RCD.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}
She has been regularly portrayed in political cartoons.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=de Abes |first=Teresa |date=2013-01-04 |title=Algerian Women between French Emancipation and Religious Domination on Marriage and Divorce from 1959 Ordonnance no. 59-274 to the 1984 Code de la Famille |url=https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol12/iss3/13/ |journal=Journal of International Women's Studies |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=201–216 |issn=1539-8706}}</ref>
== Minister of Culture and Communication == {{Expand section|date=January 2025}} In May 2002, she was appointed Minister of Culture and Communication, replacing Mohammed Abbou,<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |date=12 July 2002 |title=Bouteflika digs in |url=https://www.africa-confidential.com/article-preview/id/634/bouteflika-digs-in |journal=Africa Confidential |volume=43 |issue=14 |access-date=11 January 2025}}</ref> as well as the government's spokesperson in 2003,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Salhi |first=Zahia Smail |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7f_bAAAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA182 |title=Gender and Diversity in the Middle East and North Africa |date=2013-09-13 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-98907-3 |pages=182 |language=en}}</ref> the first woman ever to hold that job. She held her ministerial post until April 2014.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Mentges |first1=Gabriele |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LPAmDwAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA298 |title=Textiles as National Heritage: Identities, Politics and Material Culture |last2=Shamukhitdinova |first2=Lola |date=2017 |publisher=Waxmann Verlag |isbn=978-3-8309-8609-6 |language=en}}</ref> During her tenure, the national culture budget grew from $64 million to over $300 million.<ref name=":3" />
As Minister of Culture and Communication, in July 2006, Toumi was the government representative at the ''Journee Arab de la Culture'' (Arab Day of Culture) held in Algiers.<ref name=":3" /> In 2009, she opened the Second Pan-African Culture Festival, also held in Algiers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gibson |first1=Nigel C. |last2=Renault |first2=Matthieu |date=2009-12-01 |title=International Conference on Frantz Fanon. Second Pan-African Culture Festival, Algiers, 7—8 July 2009 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021909609351199 |journal=Journal of Asian and African Studies |language=en |volume=44 |issue=6 |pages=766–768 |doi=10.1177/0021909609351199 |issn=0021-9096|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
In 2008, Toumi ordered that Mohammed Benchicou's ''Journal d'un homme libre'' (A free man's notebook) be seized at the printers due to its allegedly antihistorical, subversive and racist content.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Serres |first=Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oFvEEAAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA1910 |title=The Suspended Disaster: Governing by Crisis in Bouteflika's Algeria |date=2023-09-05 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-55917-1 |pages=1895 |language=en}}</ref>
In 2012, she attended the laying of the foundation stone for the Algiers Opera House at Ouled Fayet.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Petrocelli |first=Paolo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqqwDwAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA21 |title=The Evolution of Opera Theatre in the Middle East and North Africa |date=2019-09-12 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-5275-3978-5 |pages=21 |language=en}}</ref>
In 2014 she issued a decree that historic Algiers slaughterhouses were not to be demolished and that they were pending classification as sites of national culture heritage.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Belkaïd |first=Meryem |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xGrEAAAQBAJ&dq=Khalida+Toumi&pg=PA85 |title=From Outlaw to Rebel: Oppositional documentaries in Contemporary Algeria |date=2023-01-31 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-031-19157-2 |pages=85 |language=en}}</ref>
==Professional experience== *1984-1991 Teacher of mathematics *1992-1993 Member of the (CCN): Conseil consultatif national. *1997-2002 Deputy of Algiers at the People's National Assembly (l’Assemblée populaire nationale). *2000-2001 Vice-president of the (CNRSE) Commission nationale de réforme du système éducatif (National Commission to Reform the Educational System)<ref name=":0" />
==Political activities== thumb|right|Khalida Toumi in 2009 *May 1985 founding member and president of the first Association of Independent Women.<ref name=":0" /> *March 1985 founding member and vice-president of the first Algerian League of Human Rights. *January 1992 Member of the CNSA and of the CCN. *April 1996 – 2001 Member of the secularist party: the RCD, excluded in July 2001. *1997-2002 Deputy of Algiers at the (APN) under the RCD label *October 1993 Vice president of Mouvement pour la République (MPR). *9 May 2003 Algerian Minister of Communication and Culture.<ref name=":4" />
== Conviction == {{Expand section|date=January 2025}} In 2022, Toumi was convicted of corruption, including squandering public funds, abuse of office and granting undue privileges, and was sentenced to six years in prison.<ref name="Corruption" />
==See also== *Cabinet of Algeria
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20100211201039/http://www.dadalos.org/int/Menschenrechte/Grundkurs_MR3/frauenrechte/woher/portraets/messaoudi.htm Khalida Messaoudi]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Toumi, Khalida}} Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Algerian activists Category:Algerian women activists Category:Algerian feminists Category:Berber feminists Category:Culture ministers of Algeria Category:Kabyle politicians Category:National Liberation Front (Algeria) politicians Category:People of the 2010–2012 Algerian protests Category:Women government ministers of Algeria Category:21st-century Algerian women politicians Category:21st-century Algerian politicians Category:20th-century Algerian women politicians Category:20th-century Algerian politicians Category:21st-century Algerian criminals Category:Kabyle women Category:20th-century Berber people Category:21st-century Berber people