Sanaa's mother, Laila Soueif, is a professor at Cairo University and political activist promoting academic freedom in Egypt.
Her sister Mona Seif is a genetics researcher and political activist responsible for co-founding an Egyptian movement against military trials of civilians.
[4] Her activism only grew from there and at 17 years old Sanaa, after experiencing protests in Tahrir Square, started an independent newspaper "al-gornal" with a few friends.
[5] According to an article by the Daily News Egypt, "the 22 defendants were appealing their sentencing to three years of imprisonment in October for violating the Protest Law and the use of violence with the aim of terrorising citizens".
[5] In addition to breaking Egypt's anti-demonstration laws, the protestors were charged with assaulting police officers and destroying public property.
[8] On 23 June 2020, the Amnesty International reported that Egyptian security forces kidnapped the human rights defender Sanaa Seif from outside the Public Prosecutor's office, New Cairo.
The rights organization stated that she paid visit to the office to file a complaint against a violent assault, which she and her family suffered outside Tora Prison, a day earlier.
[10] Beginning on 4 September 2014, Seif and her brother, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who was imprisoned in November 2013 for breaking the anti-demonstration law in addition to other charges, began a hunger strike from their respective prisons, while the rest of the family partook at home.
She has been highly involved on the ground since attending the protest in response to Khaled Said's beating and death at the hands of the Egyptian police.
[4] Since Seif's arrest her supporters have created both a Facebook page[12] and a website providing updates on her jail sentence and calls for her release.