Amr Hamzawy


Amr Hamzawy is an Egyptian political scientist, human rights activist and public intellectual.

Biography

Hamzawy studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague, and Berlin. After finishing his doctoral studies and after five years of teaching in Cairo and Berlin, Hamzawy joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC between 2005 and 2009 as a senior associate for Middle East politics. Between 2009 and 2010, he served as the research director of the Middle East Center of the Carnegie Endowment in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2011, he joined the Department of Public Policy and Administration at the American University in Cairo, where he worked for approximately 5 years. Finally, in late 2016, he moved to California, where he started teaching political science at Stanford University. He still works there today.
His research and teaching interests as well as his academic publications focus on democratization processes in Egypt, tensions between freedom and repression in the Egyptian public space, political movements and civil society in Egypt, contemporary debates in Arab political thought, and human rights and governance in the Arab world.
Hamzawy is a former member of the People's Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a daily column and a weekly op-ed to the Egyptian independent newspaper Al Shorouk.

Education

Hamzawy received his bachelor's degree from Cairo University in Egypt. After that he revived his master's degree from the University of Amsterdam, and another from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. In 2002, he received his PhD from the Free University of Berlin.

Political activism

Hamzawy used to work in the Middle East as a research director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beirut.
He played an important role in the 2011 Egyptian revolution and he was the spokesman of the "Board of Wise Men" set up during the revolution to offer negotiations and possible solutions to the protesters and the government.
After the installation of Ahmed Shafik as Prime Minister, Hamzawy was offered the position of Minister of Youth. He declined the post.
He has since become involved in the project for the establishment of a liberal party in Egypt. Hamzawy is a founding member of Freedom Egypt Party.
In 2012, Hamzawy was elected as a member of the Egyptian Parliament.
In 2013, he supported the campaign of the Tamarod movement for early presidential elections in Egypt. However, in the aftermath of the military coup that followed, he spoke out against the shutdown of Islamist satellite networks and the detention of President Morsi and other Islamist leaders, and objected in a newspaper column to "the rhetoric of gloating, hatred, retribution and revenge against the Muslim Brotherhood."

Private life

On 15 February 2012 Hamzawy married the Egyptian actress Basma Hassan at the Marriott Hotel in Cairo. His children are Luay, Noah and Nadya.

Selected writings