Interviews with Samar El Hussieny

Actually I grow up in Egypt — Cairo – and then Shubra Khaymah. It’s a small city nearby Cairo. And I have been born – I have been born while my dad was detained, because I’m from political-oriented family. My dad – he’s – he used to be in the opposition, and so he has – my dad – my mom born me while my dad was detained because he was against the referendum for Mubarak in the ’87. And also after a while, I started to realize what’s happening around me, and so we started to have this very political discussions in our lunches, dinners, even in the breakfast, discussing what’s happening in Egypt, how the country is going, how the regime are leading the country to ignorance, poverty and instability, everything.

So after a while my dad has been detained again. And I was – in this specific year I was in my first year in my primary school. And this is one of the most situation that really touched my heart, that I had to start my new stage in my new school while my dad was detained. So my mom, she came to me in the first day in the school and she took me out of my class and took me to my dad – to my dad to see me with a new uniform. And this situation actually makes me thinking about that I have to work on that, I have to work on the issue of human rights, democracy, freedom.

And so when I just started to realize what I’m going to do in my life, I started – I actually intended to go and work for the human rights to be my work, my passion. And everything I’m doing in my life now is concern human rights, elections, governance, democracy in Egypt, stuff like that.

Everyone was just proud of me and of my family because all of them, they know that my dad – he’s a very good one. He’s a very good guy, actually. It’s not only because he is my dad. And he has his vision, and he’s fighting for freedom. He’s not doing anything bad. And – but it was kind of a pressure from the society around us, around the family that he has to stop working in the political field, he has to work more for some stable field that he will not be treated like that or – and I think that the most hardest situation was when they were coming to detain my dad.

Samar El Hussieny grew up in a politically oriented family in Egypt. Her father was a socialist opposition politician. She studied political science and has worked in the human rights field since 2005. She participated in several student awareness activities for youth during her college years and has been active in various civil society projects concerning human rights education, election monitoring and minority rights. She is a Program Officer at the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies and is pursuing a master’s degree in political science.

Samar has been an activist in the Egyptian Revolution that began on January 25, 2011. She continues to work to promote freedom and support democracy during her country’s transitional period. Samar has also been intensively engaged on initiatives related to elections in Egypt. In addition to monitoring elections and the political process, she is involved in projects relating to minority rights, social media, and transitional justice in Egypt. Samar seeks to support reform movements and non-violent revolutions in the Arab World and beyond.

Samar was among the inaugural group of the George W. Bush Institute’s Women’s Initiative Fellowship Program in 2012, a leadership program designed to empower and equip women to catalyze change.

Samar hopes to be elected to national office and is planning to run for President of Egypt one day.