Essam El-Haddad

He had his M.B.A. from Aston University, England. He studied for PhD degree in University of Birmingham Medical School where he also worked as a research fellow, in addition to being Head of Egyptian Students’ Society in Birmingham and Head of Islamic Students’ Society in Birmingham University.

In Egypt, he chaired the Arabian Group For Development (AGD), the company was a member of the Union of Arab Exhibitions, the International Business Forum, the German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the British Egyptian Business Association, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He also founded “Inter-Build Egypt,” the country’s largest exhibition for the construction sector

As I write these lines I am fully aware that these may be the last lines I get to post on this page. For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: Military coup.

I do not need to explain in detail the worldwide catastrophic ramifications of this message. In the last week there has been every attempt to issue a counter narrative that this is just scaremongering and that the crushing of Egypt’s nascent democracy can be managed. We no longer have the time to engage in frivolous academic back and forth. The audience that reads this page understands the price that the world continues to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Egypt is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. Its symbolic weight and resulting impact is far more significant.

In February 2016, Essam El-Haddad objected when prison officials broke into his cell and insulted him. In response to his protests, officials deprived him from his right to get outside his solitary cell to the prison yard for a week. El-Haddad declared, "I am 63 and close to death but I will die with dignity." He was threatened by prison officials that his health won’t bear such strike but he insisted and a day later prison officials retreated.

In the meanwhile, Al-Akrab banned family visits to prisoners from January 24 to February 10, 2016. When visits were resumed, only 30 families were allowed to visit a day in a prison that hosts more than 1,000 detainees. As a result, families had to sleep in the street outside the prison gate the night before their visits to make sure they will be allowed to visit their detainees next day. On February 14, prison guards assaulted the families who refused to leave after being denied the right to see their relatives. Four women were beaten and briefly arrested, and many fell to the ground after being violently pushed by the guards.

In the 30th of June 2013, after a year of Morsi presidency, millions of protesters across Egypt took to the streets and demanded the resignation of Mohamed Morsi. After 3 days, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi the chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces launched the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état overthrowing president Mohamed Morsi.

Two months later, troops loyal to Sisi began a bloody crackdown against protestors and dissidents–later to be dubbed the August 2013 Rabaa massacre–that left 1,400 dead and 16,000 detained.

After Morsi and a number of his aides were taken to an unknown location by the country's armed forces. El-Haddad remained for months in this location without official charges until he was moved in 21 Dec 2013 to Al-Akrab prison.

In September 2013 Gehad El-Haddad was arrested from a Nasr City apartment. He is in now the same prison with his father but in different wings where they can't see or contact each other as said by his family

El-Haddad was appointed as Assistant to President Mohamed Morsi for Foreign Relations and International Cooperation in August 2012. He was leading the country’s efforts to join the BRICS, and engineered the Egyptian Initiative to end the Syrian Crisis. He also contributed to the cease-fire between Gaza and Israel in 2012.

In 1984, El-Haddad co-founded Islamic Relief, an international humanitarian organisation working in more than 40 countries providing emergency aid, carrying out long-term development, and campaigning for change. The Islamic Relief international headquarters are in Digbeth, in Birmingham, UK.

Essam El-Haddad /'Isām al-Haddād/ (Arabic: عصام الحداد) Egyptian born in 1953, was a senior advisor for foreign relations for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice Party. In August 2012, he was appointed as one of four Egyptian Presidential assistants with responsibility for foreign relations and international cooperation until the overthrow of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in the third of July 2013. He is now in custody in a solitary confinement in Al-Aqrab prison in Cairo.