Ahmad Seif el-Islam

Ahmad Seif el-Islam, 2008

Ahmad Seif el-Islam Abd el-Fattah Hamad ( Arabic أحمد سيف الإسلام عبد الفتاح حمد, DMG Aḥmad Saif al-Islām ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Ḥamad ; * January 9, 1951 in al-Buhaira Governorate ; † August 27, 2014 in Cairo ) was an Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist .

Life

Ahmad Seif el-Islam's father was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood . As a communist he was a member of an underground organization. He was arrested for the first time in 1983 under President Husni Mubarak . He was tortured during his five-year detention. He and his family received support from a lawyer affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, while he received no support from the liberal opposition. This led him to study law. After his release, human rights and the fight against torture became the focus of his activities. He was admitted to the bar in December 1989.

In 1999, Ahmad Seif el-Islam founded the Hisham Mubarak Legal Center (HMLC), with which he campaigned for victims of torture and those arbitrarily arrested and represented them in court. Based on his experiences during his own imprisonment and torture, he made no distinction with regard to the political views of his clients and represented the Muslim Brotherhood as well as communists and homosexuals . This earned him a campaign of defamation by the government and the judiciary. In 2006 he was one of the defense lawyers for Kareem Amer , the first Egyptian to stand trial for blogging. Amer was charged with criticizing President Husni Mubarak and Islam , and he was eventually sentenced to four years in prison. During the 2011 revolution in Egypt , offices of the Hisham Mubarak Legal Center served as meeting places for demonstrators. He later served on the commission of inquiry into the use of violence during the 2011 revolution in Egypt .

In early August 2014, he underwent open-heart surgery which resulted in him falling into a coma and dying on August 27 at the age of 63. Ahmad Seif el-Islam left behind his wife Leila Soueif , a political activist and lecturer in mathematics at Cairo University , son Alaa Abd el-Fattah , and daughters Mona Seif and Sanaa Seif .

Web links

Markus Bickel, Rainer Hermann: On the death of Ahmad Seif El-Islam - "Instead, I passed the prison cell on to you." Obituary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 27, 2014
Joe Stork: Ahmed Seif Al Islam: In Memoriam. Obituary on Human Rights Watch homepage , August 28, 2014
Douglas Martin: Ahmed Seif, Who Was Tortured in Egypt and Became Rights Defender, Dies at 63rd obituary in The New York Times , August 29, 2014

Individual evidence

↑ Human Rights Defender in Egypt: Ahmed Seif El-Islam. Reported on Amnesty International's homepage , December 9, 2008 (accessed August 31, 2014).
↑ Ahmad Seif el-Islam Hamad: Egypt loses a tireless champion of human rights. Reported on Amnesty International's homepage, August 29, 2014 (accessed August 31, 2014).

personal data
SURNAME	Seif el-Islam, Ahmad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Seif el-Islam Abd el-Fattah Hamad, Ahmad (full name); Saif al-Islām, Aḥmad; Al-Islam, Ahmed Saif
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH	January 9, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH	Al-Buhaira Governorate , Egypt
DATE OF DEATH	August 27, 2014
Place of death	Cairo , Egypt

[1] Human Rights Defender in Egypt: Ahmed Seif El-Islam. Reported on Amnesty International's homepage , December 9, 2008 (accessed August 31, 2014).

[2] Ahmad Seif el-Islam Hamad: Egypt loses a tireless champion of human rights. Reported on Amnesty International's homepage, August 29, 2014 (accessed August 31, 2014).