9 December 2008
Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, a 57 year old Egyptian lawyer, recounted to Amnesty International how he was arrested and tortured by State Security Investigations (SSI) officers in 1983 for his involvement in the socialist movement. Ever since, Ahmed has dedicated his life to the fight against torture in Egypt. In 1989, soon after he was released after serving five years in prison, Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad involved himself in some of the most important human rights-related cases in the country.
"Of course when I became more involved in human rights, I found it has a much wider scope than torture, though all of it arises from the original basic rule, which the UDHR also upholds, and that is respect for human dignity. All that violates human dignity is an abuse to human rights.” he told Amnesty International over the phone.
In 1999, Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad founded with other human rights defenders the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre (HMLC). They named it after Hisham Mubarak, an Egyptian human rights lawyer who in 1994 decided to focus on providing legal assistance to victims of human rights violations.
The HMLC provides advice and other support to victims and survivors of torture and other human rights violations, seeks to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice and works with other civil society organizations to achieve the abolition of laws which undermine human rights and contradict the human rights principles enshrined in Egypt’s Constitution.
In 2006, Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad was one of the defence lawyers for Karim Amer. The first Egyptian blogger to face criminal charges for publishing on the internet material that the authorities deemed critical of Egypt’s President and Islam, Karim Amer was convicted and jailed for four years ...
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/feature-stories/human-rights-defender-egypt-ahmed-seif-el-islam-20081209
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