He was a senior advisor for foreign relations for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Freedom and Justice Party.

[5] In 1984, El-Haddad co-founded Islamic Relief, an international humanitarian organisation working in more than 40 countries providing emergency aid, carrying out long-term development, and campaigning for change.

[6] In Egypt, he chaired the Arabian Group For Development (AGD), the company was a member of the Union of Arab Exhibitions, the International Business Forum, the German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the British Egyptian Business Association, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

[7] Gehad had become the most recognized face of the Muslim Brotherhood in foreign media during the period following former President Mohamed Morsi's ouster.

He held several interviews with international media from inside Rabaa Square where protesters made a sit-in for more than a month.

[8] El-Haddad was appointed as Assistant to President Mohamed Morsi for Foreign Relations and International Cooperation in August 2012.

He was leading the country’s efforts to join the BRICS, and engineered the Egyptian Initiative to end the Syrian Crisis.

We stood, and we still stand, for a very simple idea: given freedom, we Egyptians can build institutions that allow us to promote and choose among all the different visions for the country.

In the last week there has been every attempt to issue a counter narrative that this is just scaremongering and that the crushing of Egypt’s nascent democracy can be managed.

The audience that reads this page understands the price that the world continues to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[10] Two months later, troops loyal to Sisi began a bloody crackdown against protestors and dissidents–later to be dubbed the August 2013 Rabaa massacre–that left 1,400 dead and 16,000 detained.

El-Haddad remained for months in this location without official charges until he was moved in 21 Dec 2013 to Al-Akrab prison.

The inmates in this prison suffer from ill-treated, shortage of food and extremely bad conditions for family visits.

Essam and his son Gehad are in solitary confinement where they are allowed only one hour of exercise each day inside a closed yard.

As a result inmates develop other diseases due to the lack of vitamin D whose scarcity leads to weakness in the mind and in the body.

[16] Meanwhile, Families of Aqrab Detainees Association made a statement: "Major General Hassan Al-Sohagi, Assistant Minister of Interior for the prison sector, met with Aqrab Prison hunger-strikers and gave them a short message: he has "a Carte Blanche to deal with this strike" in whatever way he liked, from harassing detainees' families, through the prevention of visits, to state-sponsored executions, if this strike is not ended.

"[17] It is not clear what was the result of this hunger strike, but inmates of Al-Aqrab still suffer from ill-conditions while their trials are closing to its end.