Sanaa Seif
| Sanaa Seif | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 20, 1993 |
| Residence | Cairo |
| Nationality | Egyptian |
| Parent(s) | Ahmed Seif and Laila Soueif |
| Relatives | Alaa Abd El-Fatah (brother) and Mona Seif "(sister)" |
Sanaa Seif is a female political activist who became actively involved in the Egyptian revolution in 2011. She was a student of language and translation at October University until her arrest in 2014. She was granted a presidential pardon, along with 100 others in September 2015.
Sanaa Seif is a 21-year-old political activist and student from Egypt. Seif belongs to a well known and very politically active family. Her father Ahmed Seif was an activist and human rights attorney until his death in 2014. Sanaa's mother, Laila Soueif is a professor at Cairo University and political activist promoting academic freedom in Egypt. Her two older siblings are also well known in the activist community. Her brother Alaa Abd El-Fattah became an icon during the 2011 uprisings that toppled the Mumbarak regime. Her sister Mona Seif is a genetics researcher and political activist responsible for co-founding an Egyptian movement against military trials of civilians.
Sanaa began her activism in 2011 during the height of revolutionary protests in Egypt. Her first experience with protest happened when she became involved in a movement remembering Khaled Said. Her activism only grew from there and at 17 years old Sanaa, after experiencing protests in Tahrir Square, started an independent newspaper "al-gornal" with a few friends. The independent paper, addressing issues at the heart of the Arab Spring, quickly began popular and production rose to more than 30,000 copies printed per issue.
Since her initial involvement in the Arab Spring, Sanaa has also been very active in protest movements and human rights issues. Her image has become a symbol to revolutionaries who respect her political and human rights work and see her as a revolutionary spirit.
Sanaa currently studies language and translation at October 6 University.
On June 21, 2014 twenty three men and women, including Sanaa Seif, were arrested outside of the presidential palace in Cairo for protesting the Egyptian protest law. The demonstration was to protest the government's anti-demonstration laws. In a resulting trial, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced the protestors to "two years imprisonment and two further years of surveillance". According to an article by the Daily News Egypt, "the 22 defendants were appealing their sentencing to three years of imprisonment in October for violating the Protest Law and the use of violence with the aim of terrorising citizens". In addition to breaking Egypt's anti-demonstration laws, the protestors were charged with assaulting police officers and destroying public property. Since the time of the verdict, many international organizations including the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch, and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights have condemned the verdict. As of February 2015, none of the prominent activists from the movement were pardoned, despite rumors that pardons would be issued on the anniversary of the January 25th movement.
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