Please join the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), and The Freedom Initiative (FI) for an in-person discussion with Egyptian film editor, writer, and activist Sanaa Seif and POMED’s Executive Director Stephen McInerney The conversation will focus on the release of the book You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021 (Seven Stories Press), written by Sanaa’s brother Alaa Abdel Fattah.

Alaa is widely regarded as one of Egypt’s most prominent intellectuals and a leading voice in the January 2011 revolution. He has been arrested under each successive Egyptian presidency in his lifetime and spent eight of the last nine years wrongfully detained – solely because of his fight for a free, fair, and representative government in Egypt. Earlier this month, the Washington Post Editorial Board called for Alaa’s release. 

Alaa’s book will be published in the United States on April 19 and Sanaa is on a short book tour in the United States to raise awareness about her brother’s case and discuss conditions inside Egypt’s prisons. You Have Not Yet Been Defeated is a moving collection of Alaa’s speeches, essays, and letters, translated by a collective, which recount the spirit of revolution as well as the repression that has followed since.

Featuring:

• Sanaa Seif
  Filmmaker, producer, and activist
• Stephen McInerney
  Executive Director, POMED

Speaker Bios:

Sanaa Seif is an Egyptian filmmaker, producer and political activist. She has been imprisoned three times under the Sisi regime for her activism. Most recently from the summer of 2020 until December 2021, when she was abducted by security forces after trying to get a letter to her brother in prison. Hundreds of cultural figures and dozens of institutions campaigned for her release. She was released in December and is traveling in the United States to promote her imprisoned brother, Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s, newly published book, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated.

Stephen McInerney is POMED’s executive director. Stephen joined POMED as its Advocacy Director in 2007 and became Executive Director in 2010. Prior to joining POMED, he spent six years living, working, and studying in the Middle East and North Africa – two years each in Egypt, Lebanon, and Qatar. He spent two years in a master’s degree program in the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut, one year on a fellowship at the Center for Arab Study Abroad (CASA) at the American University in Cairo, and three years teaching at Cairo American College and the American School of Doha. He received a master’s degree from Stanford University and is fluent in Arabic.