Interviews with Bahey El Din Hassan

We can´t claim– not only for the Cairo Institute, for any other human rights NGO, not only in Egypt, even in other Arab countries, we can´t claim that we were leaders, we were guiding this revolution because this is not the nature of the human rights work. So all those human rights groups, definitely, they have made a great historical contribution to the launch of this revolution. But I don´t think that anyone can claim that this or that organization in Egypt or in any other Arab country was leading or guiding the revolution.

But definitely, I can´t imagine the revolution in Egypt if I would agree that we had a revolution I can´t imagine such what so-called revolution without the contribution of such great novelists, writers, artists, actors who fought through their profession, for the cause of democracy and human rights. And they were fully aware that they are doing such a job. By making great pieces of art or novel they contributed, definitely, to the contribution as well as human rights groups and defenders. In this regard, I would like to underline the fact that there was no plan to make a revolution. So, anyone, in fact, can´t claim that he or she was leading the revolution. There was a plan to organize a day of anger, to express the feeling of un-satisfaction with the Mubarak regime.

The plan was just the holding of a day of protest against the [Former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak regime. And the organizers of this day, they were very thoughtful in choosing the annual day of the police, the 25th of January [2011] for such day of protest. And so they worked, more hard for these days. They were more creative in mobilizing people and in making surprises for the police. But I guess that that choosing the day, annual day of the police, was very appealing for the Egyptian people. So what happened that the plan to just to have few thousand, it ends on the this first day, the 21st January, to have hundreds of thousands, and not just to hold symbolic gathering against the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior, but to occupy Tahrir Square.

So this had made the organizers to be more ambitious about the objectives, about slogans, about the continuity of the protest. And gradually it has been transformed into an appeal to Mubarak to step down, not just to protest against the brutality of the police.

Bahey El Din Hassan is an Egyptian human rights activist who has worked tirelessly to promote human rights culture in his native Egypt and throughout the Arab world.

Prior to the Egyptian revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak’s government, Hassan, a professional journalist, was an ardent advocate for freedom of the press. Through this activism, he became more interested in the importance of educating others on human rights. In 1983, he joined the Arab Organization for Human Rights and two years later helped establish an offshoot group called the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). Over the years, the Egyptian government cracked down on EOHR’s work, arresting and torturing several of the organization’s members and stripping its status as a legally registered entity. Despite the threat of violence or arrest, Hassan and others helped EOHR to endure and continued to strengthen Egypt’s human rights movement.

In 1993, Hassan co-founded the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHRS), an independent NGO that promotes human rights and democracy in the Arab region. Today, Hassan serves as the Director of CIHRS. Through these various organizations, Hassan has played a role in educating a new generation of young Egyptians on the importance of embracing a universal code of human rights that encourages freedom and dignity for all people.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Hassan continues his efforts to strengthen human rights education in Egypt and the greater Arab world. Hassan argues that the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime was only the beginning, and that Egyptians must cultivate a democratic tradition, bolstered by a robust civil society, that respects human rights in order to be successful. As a journalist, lecturer, and author, Hassan educates audiences in the Middle East and North Africa on human rights, democratic transformation in the Arab world, and the challenges facing human rights defenders throughout the region.