Hossam Bahgat


Hossam Bahgat is an Egyptian human rights activist and investigative journalist. He is the founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. He was a journalist for Mada Masr from 2002 to 2013.

Early life

Hossam Bahgat was born circa 1978.

Career

Bahgat started his career as a journalist. He subsequently worked for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, but he quit his job because of their inaction over the Queen Boat incident, when 52 men were arrested for homosexual acts. Instead, he founded Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a human rights organization, in 2002. It was the first human rights organization in Egypt to recognize LGBT rights as human rights.
Bahgat is an investigative journalist for Mada Masr. He was arrested on 8 November 2015 and detained until 10 November 2015 for "publishing false news that harms national interests and disseminating information that disturbs public peace" during the presidency of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The arrest was condemned both by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International. In January 2016, he was again critical of el-Sisi's regime, when he argued that the "level of repression now significantly higher than it was under the Mubarak regime".
Bahgat was the 2011 recipient of the Alison Des Forges Award from Human Rights Watch "for upholding the personal freedoms of all Egyptians".

Personal life

Bahgat resides in Alexandria, Egypt.