"[2] In addition to teaching and practising as a civil engineer, Hanna was politically active for most of his life, fighting for many causes, chief of which were religious equality for Copts, and access to housing for the poor.
[7] Hanna, inspired by Coptic nationalist and politician Makram Ebeid, who was also MP for his district, moved to Scotland in 1947 to pursue a PhD at the University of St. Andrews, which he received in 1950.
[8] After Egypt's independence and the July 1952 Revolution, Hanna was asked by Free Officer Khaled Mohieddin in 1957 to write on housing issues for the government owned newspaper Al Messa.
As a professor, security reports recorded his dissent and reached interior minister Sharawi Gomaa, who would have either imprisoned Hanna, or at best had him expelled from university had a high level friend not intervened.
[9] This close encounter established a long friendship between Hanna and Gomaa, where the latter asked for reports and insights into housing issues that reached him through his post as secretary general of the secret Vanguards Organisation (al-tanzim al-tali'i), or president Gamal Abdel Nasser himself.