Osama Sahyoun is an Egyptian lawyer, writer, and human rights activist, born in Mansoura in 1997. He studied law at Mansoura University and worked in the legal field for five years before leaving Egypt and migrating to Europe. Osama Sahyoun was military arrested in 2022 and shares his experiences in the judicial and military spheres through social media platforms, documenting many conditions of political detention involving human rights defenders, writers, and journalists in Egypt.
Osama Sahyoun's opinins are known to be direct and often strong, sometimes marked by a sarcastic tone in criticizing the bleak reality. This can lead to misunderstandings of his opinions if the person does not understand Egyptian culture or the Arabic language.
Sahyoun is considered a contradictory figure by many due to his adoption of values that may seem conflicting. He believes in With values and personal freedoms, but at the same time, he criticizes many modernist ideas. On the other hand, he faces accusations of atheism and "Kuffur" from the radical Muslims, which led to an attempted kidnapping in May 2023 by some Islamic extremists in Alexandria, Egypt, while performing his duties as a lawyer. whereas secularists and atheists see him as "reactionary, backward, and influenced by Islamic ideology". And the Egyptian police consider him a "dangerous element to national security".
The Egyptian police were unhelpful when he requested assistance during his attempted kidnapping by Islamic extremists in Alexandria. Police officers assumed he was indeed an atheist and threatened him with imprisonment on charges of insulting religion if he did not retract his report against those who tried to kidnap and assault him.
On November 9, 2023, lawyer Osama Sahyoun faced another attempted arrest by the National Security Agency while he was not at home. He managed to escape until he left Egypt. On the same day, his office manager, "Amr Gamal," also known as Muslim Suleiman, was arrested and held incommunicado for over 54 days, only to appear later before the State Security Prosecution, accused of involvement in a terrorist case dating back to 2021.
Osama Sahyoun documents and conveys the experiences of detainees and their suffering through his legal practice and firsthand experiences with various Egyptian security agencies, primarily the Egyptian State Security and the Criminal Investigations Department (Mabahith).