About Mr. Sameh Ashour

He began his political career in the early 1970s as president of the Cairo University Law School Student Union

Then he began his career as a lawyer defending political detainees in the case of the January 17 and 18, 1977 demonstrations against the lifting of subsidies.

He was the youngest political detainee in the famous September arrests campaign in 1981 in opposition to Camp David.

His personality, which combined the trade union and political tracks, crystallized early, and resulted in the “charisma” of public work through several battles and challenges that began with the Bar Association, of which he was elected a member since 1985: 1994.

His battles moved to address the public issues that affect the lives of Egyptians, foremost among them the sale of the public sector, the legal defense of workers and the issue of the railway workers’ strike.

In the course of politics, which did not separate from his trade union concerns, Ashour refused to run on the National Party’s lists for the 1984 parliament.

At the beginning of the 1990s, he participated in the establishment of the Nasserist Party, to begin a new journey in his political battles against the Brotherhood and the government until he became the head of the party after that.

He reached the parliamentary dome in the 1995-2000 session, carrying a lot in his quiver and submitting dozens of interrogations and briefing requests.

Ashour also fought with his colleagues in a heated battle against the government to lift the guardianship of the Lawyers Syndicate

Then he fought the elections for the position of head of the Bar Association in 2001 and swept as the youngest head of the Bar Association in the history of the Bar Association.

From this date until the start of the January 25, 2011 revolution, his confrontations with the alliances of the Muslim Brotherhood and the government did not subside.

At that time, the syndicate appeared professional with clear positions on Arab issues, foremost of which was the rejection of the war on Iraq in 2003, in which the Bar Association announced the opening of the door for volunteering for armed defense of Iraq, which at that time gathered nearly 27,000 volunteers Ready to sacrifice their lives in order to save their Arab sister if not for the fall of Baghdad and the complete American occupation of Iraq, as well as full solidarity with the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people, and the syndicate was then collecting donations to send to the Palestinian Authority to support its struggle against the occupying Zionist entity.

He had an influential presence in Arab and international forums in defense of the rights of the Arab peoples in Lebanon and Sudan in defense of their freedoms and national issues, and his famous and direct speech in Damascus addressed to Bashar Al-Assad in his presence that he must respect the rights and demands of the Syrian people to obtain freedom, democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.

Then the lawyers renewed their confidence in Sameh Ashour in a new cycle as a captain of lawyers in 2005 until 2008

Sameh Ashour was one of the staunchest opponents of the succession project and the blatant fraud in the 2010 parliament, which mainly paved the way for the January 25, 2011 revolution.

After stepping down, Ashour continued his patriotic role in calling on the military council to listen to all political trends in the country, refusing to be satisfied with the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was the majority at the time, and the Nasserist leader warned against holding parliamentary elections before establishing a clear constitution for the country

Ashour then chaired the Advisory Council, which included all political currents in Egypt, which aimed to establish legal controls for the Constituent Assembly of the Constitution, and contributed to supporting the restructuring of the police after the state of tensions that prevailed between the Interior Ministry and the people

Before the 2012 presidential elections, Ashour appealed to all candidates to understand and settle on one candidate for the civil forces because the result would be the victory of either one of the symbols of the former regime or the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam. After the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, Ashour began a new chapter of confronting the Brotherhood state, and his positions were crystallized in his non-participation from the beginning in the Committee of 100 to write the constitution, but called on everyone to withdraw from it and not participate.

He then confronted the constitutional declarations that came to waste the meaning of the state of institutions and the rule of law, which were represented in the decision to return the dissolved parliament, the dismissal of the Attorney General, as well as his positions on the judiciary, defending the independence of the judiciary and denouncing the siege of the Supreme Constitutional Court and preventing it from convening to adjudicate the cases before it and the appeals related to the Committee of 100 to write the constitution.

Before that, the biggest confrontation was between him and ousted President Mohamed Morsi at the centennial celebration of the Bar Association. Ashour broke away from the traditional celebratory atmosphere and addressed Morsi, who was present at the time, that Egypt is not the Freedom and Justice Party and cannot be, and that the Constituent Assembly has a legal flaw that prevents it from being held and does not express all sects of the Egyptian people.

Months after Morsi’s rule, Sameh Ashour participated in the establishment of the Salvation Front, which included many political forces, which was the first spark for June 30 and the removal of Morsi and his group

Ashour launched his call to popular and political forces that June 30 should be the day of arresting Mohamed Morsi, not just removing him, and Ashour led a huge joint march of lawyers and journalists to Tahrir Square on June 30.

This comes in addition to his political and legal support for the Tamarod movement as the first legal and constitutional basis for the legitimacy, authority and legality of the forms collected by the movement.

Sameh Ashour’s national giving did not stop after the removal of the Brotherhood, but extended to participate in the work of the Committee of Fifty as head of the Community Dialogue Committee, which drafted the new constitution approved by the majority of the Egyptian people.

Then he was chosen by virtue of his position as a bar captain in the Legislative Reform Committee formed by President Al-Sisi to review all Egyptian legislation to present it to the Presidency of the Republic.

Sameh Ashour also defended the rights of the martyrs of the revolution, starting with those who rose to their righteousness on January 25 and beyond, he was the head of the defense body for the civil right plaintiffs in the cases of killing protesters against Mubarak and the case of killing protesters in front of the Federal Palace against Mohamed Morsi.

Sameh Ashour has a long and extended history over decades, from the time he was a student until he became the head of the Union of Arab Lawyers and the president of the Arab Lawyers Union.

You may agree with his positions or disagree with them, but everyone does not disagree that throughout his history he has maintained a clear and consistent position according to his principles throughout the different political regimes.