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May 4, 1928 - Hosni Mubarak

Egypt's longest-serving modern leader held power for three decades through a combination of emergency law, rigged referendums, and the systematic suppression of political opposition — conditions that ultimately produced the 2011 uprising that ended his rule. His government was documented by human rights organizations for widespread torture, arbitrary detention, and the crushing of dissent, even as he presented Egypt to the West as a pillar of regional stability.

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Hosni Mubarak

Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (Arabic: محمد حسني السيد مبارك‎; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the 4th president of Egypt from 1981 until his resignation in 2011, following the Egyptian revolution. He was previously the 7th vice president under President Anwar Sadat from 1975 until his accession to the presidency, and the 41st prime minister from 1981 to 1982. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in the Egyptian Air Force. He served as its commander from 1972 to 1975 and rose to the rank of air chief marshal in 1973.

After Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Mubarak assumed the presidency in a single-candidate referendum, and renewed his term through single-candidate referendums in 1987, 1993, and 1999. Under United States pressure, Mubarak held the country's first multi-party election in 2005, which he won. In 1989, he succeeded in reinstating Egypt's membership in the Arab League, which had been frozen since the Camp David Accords with Israel, and in returning the Arab League's headquarters back to Cairo. He was known for his supportive stance on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, in addition to his role in the Gulf War.

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