49 Facts About Hamdeen Sabahi

Hamdeen Sabahi is a former presidential candidate and currently the leader of the Egyptian Popular Current and a co-leader of the National Salvation Front.

An opposition activist during the Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak eras, Sabahi was jailed 17 times during their presidencies for political dissidence.

Hamdeen Sabahi was an immediate supporter and participant of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Hamdeen Sabahi ran as an independent and not as the Dignity Party's candidate.

One of the few secular figures without any ties to the regime of Hosni Mubarak, Hamdeen Sabahi attracted the support of several leading Nasserists.

Hamdeen Sabahi ran under the slogan "one of us" which highlights his strong ties with the working class and advocates his socialist aspirations.

Hamdeen Sabahi gained the support of prominent Egyptian figures including writer and political activist Alaa Al Aswany and director and film-writer Khaled Youssef.

Hamdeen Sabahi was born in a small Nile Delta town in Kafr el-Sheikh Governorate called Baltim in 1954 to a father who was a fellah.

Hamdeen Sabahi's father had benefited from the land ownership reforms brought about after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

Hamdeen Sabahi spent his childhood being around farmers and fishermen and became a fisherman during adolescence.

In 1975 Hamdeen Sabahi became a student in Cairo University where he studied mass communication and served as editor-in-chief of the university's magazine The Students.

Together with a group of his friends, Hamdeen Sabahi founded the Nasserist Thought Club, which he presided over.

That year, Hamdeen Sabahi was elected as president of Cairo University's student council until 1976 and as the president of the General Union of Egyptian Students until 1977.

In 1977, after the mass anti-government protests, then-President Anwar Sadat met with Student Union representatives from around Egypt for a televised debate and it was there that Hamdeen Sabahi became well known among Egyptians.

Hamdeen Sabahi openly expressed his disapproval of Sadat's economic policies and the alleged corruption of his government.

Hamdeen Sabahi criticized Sadat's Infitah or "Open-Door" policy, which he said only favored the capitalists and those who were already well-off.

Hamdeen Sabahi criticized Sadat's plans to make peace with Israel, while Palestinians remained without a home and devoid of representation.

In September 1981, as a result of his vociferous criticism of the peace treaty, Hamdeen Sabahi became the youngest member of the Nationalist Opposition movement to be detained.

Hamdeen Sabahi was among some 1,500 other political activists jailed by Sadat's government in nationwide crackdown.

Hamdeen Sabahi was arrested again, this time during the presidency of Hosni Mubarak in the late 1980s, for allegedly being a member of the "Egypt Revolution" group, which was accused of killing Israelis inside Egypt.

Hamdeen Sabahi was arrested again in 1991 after a speech to students in Cairo University where he condemned airstrikes by the United States against Iraq, following the Iraqi military's withdrawal from Kuwait.

Hamdeen Sabahi helped establish the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party, headed by Diaa al-Din Dawoud.

Hamdeen Sabahi had been consistently supportive of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Israel since the 1970s.

Hamdeen Sabahi did not win in that election, although he won a significant number of votes and made it to the run-off.

Hamdeen Sabahi was part of the latter group and along with Amin Iskander and three other high-ranking cadres from the young guard, were eventually suspended from the party by Dawoud in March 1996 for continually insisting that the old guard share power with the youth for the sake of modernization.

Hamdeen Sabahi was arrested for the third time and tortured in 1997 for vociferously opposing the law.

Hamdeen Sabahi was charged "with inciting agricultural workers to stage an open-ended sit-in on their land in protest" against that law.

In 2000 Hamdeen Sabahi was elected as a member of parliament, although he ran as an independent.

Hamdeen Sabahi opposed land enlargement schemes in the lake area by filling Burullus up with sand, which he claimed would destroy the area's fauna and lead to high unemployment among fishermen.

In 2003 Hamdeen Sabahi was arrested for the fourth time for leading demonstrations against the usage of the Suez Canal by United States' destroyers heading towards Iraq as part of the invasion of that country.

Hamdeen Sabahi was the first member of parliament to be detained while in office.

Hamdeen Sabahi became the editor-in-chief of the newly created Al-Karama newspaper, the official paper of the party, until mid 2010.

In 2006 Hamdeen Sabahi declared his support for the Lebanese resistance to Israel, and in 2008, he went to the Gaza Strip in an attempt to help lift the siege of the territory.

In 2009, Hamdeen Sabahi left his position as secretary-general of al-Karama to focus on his plan to run for the upcoming presidential election.

On 25 January 2011, the first day of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Hamdeen Sabahi joined the protests that took place in his hometown of Baltim, and was lightly injured by security forces attempting to quell the demonstration.

Hamdeen Sabahi participated in several protests the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which maintained interim control of the country.

Hamdeen Sabahi promised that he will do his best to help Egypt become a democracy, where the law is truly above all and where citizens' rights are sacrosanct.

Hamdeen Sabahi promised economic reforms such as setting priorities for the national budget and setting a minimum wage for laborers.

Hamdeen Sabahi argued that this would be the first step to achieving social equity and justice as well as giving equal opportunity to all Egyptians.

Since the announcement of the election results, Hamdeen Sabahi has lodged a formal complaint, alleging irregularities in the voting and questioning the legality of the candidature of Ahmed Shafiq.

Hamdeen Sabahi has censured a court conviction sentencing Ahmed Maher, Mohammed Adel and Ahmed Douma to three years in prison and a fine of LE50,000 and maintains that Interim President Adly Mansour should issue these and other detained individuals a pardon.

Hamdeen Sabahi officially announced his presidential bid for the 2014 Egyptian presidential election on 8 February 2014.

On 14 March 2014, Hamdeen Sabahi criticized Field Marshal Sisi and the transitional interim government, expressing doubt about Sisi's commitment to democracy, arguing that the general bears a measure of direct and indirect responsibility for the human rights violations carried out during the period of the interim government, and denouncing what he deems to be the transitional government's hostility toward the goals of the revolution.

Hamdeen Sabahi was confirmed as a candidate in the 2014 presidential election on 2 May 2014.

Hamdeen Sabahi stated that he would do away with the protest law if he was elected president.

Hamdeen Sabahi stated that he would amend the Camp David Accords and would allow the Egyptian people to vote on it if he was elected president.

Hamdeen Sabahi argued in March 2013 that Mohamed Morsi, president of Egypt, is the "new Mubarak", but initially refused to endorse his overthrow by the military.

Hamdeen Sabahi believes that the Zionists are our enemy, but when the historic moment arrives, he will decide what action to take.

Hamdeen Sabahi's remarks came after activist Alaa Abd El Fattah and 24 others were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in absentia in the Shura Council case one day earlier.