Shukrallah by el-Hamalawy, June 2010
Hani Shukrallah (also spelled ''Hany''; ar, هاني شكر الله; 1950 – 5 May 2019) was an Egyptian journalist and political analyst. He was editor-in-chief of ''
Al-Ahram Weekly
''Al-Ahram Weekly'' is an English-language weekly broadsheet printed by the Al-Ahram Publishing House in Cairo, Egypt.
History and profile
''Al Ahram Weekly'' was established in 1991 by the ''Al-Ahram'' newspaper, which also runs a French-langu ...
'' between 1991 and 2005 and later founder and until February 2011
editor-in-chief of ''
Ahram Online
''Al-Ahram'' ( ar, الأهرام; ''The Pyramids''), founded on 5 August 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after '' al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majori ...
, ''both part of the state-run Al-Ahram Foundation. He was also the Executive Director of the Heikal Foundation for Arab Journalism.
Early life and career
Shukrallah was born in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
,
Egypt in 1950 to a Coptic Christian family, and was raised in the city.
His sister
Hala, is the first
Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet ...
woman to head an Egyptian political party. Throughout the 1970s, he was a student activist during the presidency of
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
. He described himself as a "
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
," but antagonistic of the "dogmatic leftist thinking" that he said marked many of the socialist and communist countries during that period. He became an advocate of the human rights movement in Egypt during this period and together with
Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Saad Eddin Ibrahim ( arz, سعد الدين إبراهيم, ) (born 31 December 1938) is an Egyptian sociologist and author. He is one of Egypt's leading human rights and democracy activists, and a strong critic of former Egyptian President Hosni ...
co-founded the
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), founded in April 1985 and with its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, is a non-profit NGO and one of the longest-standing bodies for the defense of human rights in Egypt. It investigates, monitors, a ...
(EOHR) in April 1985, during the presidency of
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in t ...
. Shukrallah attests that the EOHR was largely ignored by the government, opposition parties and factions—including
Islamists—and the intellectual elite of Egypt and the organization struggled in documenting human rights violations and ensuring the accuracy of victims' testimonies.
Journalism career
In 1991 Shukrallah was appointed managing editor and later editor-in-chief of the state-owned newspaper ''
Al-Ahram Weekly
''Al-Ahram Weekly'' is an English-language weekly broadsheet printed by the Al-Ahram Publishing House in Cairo, Egypt.
History and profile
''Al Ahram Weekly'' was established in 1991 by the ''Al-Ahram'' newspaper, which also runs a French-langu ...
''.
Starting in 1995, he had his own column, called "Reflections," in the newspaper.
He was dismissed as chief editor in July 2005. During that year in particular, Shukrallah had written numerous articles criticizing Egyptian politics and demanding that the Mubarak government make clearer how it would allow for more political liberalization, being skeptical of the promised reforms. He continued to work for the state-run Al-Ahram Foundation which publishes the ''Al-Ahram Weekly'', becoming a consultant to the
Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies think tank that year, a job he held until late 2008. In 2009 he served as the co-chief editor of the ''
Al-Shorouk
''Al-Shorouk'', ''Shorouk News'' or ''Al-Shuruq'' ( ar, الشروق "The Sunrise") is a prominent Arabic newspaper published in Egypt and several other Arabic nations. It is a daily independent liberal-oriented newspaper, covering mainly poli ...
'' daily, a paper he helped establish.
In 2010 Shukrallah launched ''
Ahram Online
''Al-Ahram'' ( ar, الأهرام; ''The Pyramids''), founded on 5 August 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after '' al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majori ...
'', an English-language news site published by the Al-Ahram Foundation, and served as its editor-in-chief.
Throughout his career in journalism, Shukrallah also wrote articles in the
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
-based ''
Al-Hayat
Al-Hayat ( ar, الحياة meaning "Life") was a London-based, pan-Arab newspaper owned by Saudi Prince Khalid bin Sultan, that had a circulation estimated over 200,000. It was the newspaper of record for the Arab diaspora and the preferred v ...
'' and ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', the Indian magazine ''
Outlook
Outlook or The Outlook may refer to:
Computing
* Microsoft Outlook, an e-mail and personal information management software product from Microsoft
* Outlook.com, a web mail service from Microsoft
* Outlook on the web, a suite of web applications ...
'' and the ''
Journal of Palestine Studies
The ''Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS)'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1971. It is published by Taylor and Francis on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies, having previously been published by the University ...
''.
The main topics Shukrallah concentrated on were the Egyptian government, domestic politics, political Islam, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israelis ( he, יִשְׂרָאֵלִים, translit=Yīśrāʾēlīm; ar, الإسرائيليين, translit=al-ʾIsrāʾīliyyin) are the citizens and nationals of the State of Israel. The country's populace is composed primarily of Jew ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
-led
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
and "
War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
."
Following the
2011 Egyptian revolution
The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January revolution ( ar, ثورة ٢٥ يناير; ), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police ho ...
, Shukrallah joined the
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
, but later left the party. He became a critic of the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF; ar, المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة, ', also Higher Council of the Armed Forces) is a statutory body of between 20 and 25 senior Egyptian military officers and is headed by Fi ...
, which took power after Mubarak's ouster in February 2011 and claimed they had intended "to stop the revolution at every juncture." He was also critical of the
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
and supported the ouster of Mohamed Morsi from power, writing that mass protests against Morsi on 30 June "put
ing
Ing, ING or ing may refer to:
Art and media
* '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film
* i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group
* The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes''
* "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...
somewhere between 30-40 percent of the nation’s adult population on the streets in a single day."
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shukrallah, Hani
1950 births
2019 deaths
Egyptian political journalists
Egyptian Marxists
Journalists from Cairo
Egyptian newspaper editors
Egyptian columnists
20th-century Egyptian writers
21st-century Egyptian writers
20th-century journalists
21st-century journalists
Egyptian male writers
Egyptian newspaper founders
Coptic Christians from Egypt