Egyptian journalist and human rights activist, 36-year-old Hossam Bahgat has always gone against the mainstream, starting with his decision to set up the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) in 2002 and ending with his other decision to re-enter journalism in 2014.

Egyptian journalist and human rights activist, 36-year-old Hossam Bahgat has always gone against the mainstream, starting with his decision to set up the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) in 2002 and ending with his other decision to re-enter journalism in 2014.

In a single year, Bahgat produced a series of important and bold investigative reports for the independent website madamasr.com, mostly focusing on civil and military investigations – one of those reports, however, landed Bahgat in a military prison on November 8, after his arrest on charges of publishing false news. He has since been released from military custody, according to madamasr.com, but it is not clear whether or not charges have been dropped.

Last month Bahgat had published an article about an alleged plan by military officers to overthrow President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Bahghat took on an unusual reporting methodology devoid of any descriptive styles or narratives explaining the profound human dimensions of the protagonist. It was deliberate, says Bahgat, to leave no room for any interpretations, which was likely to undermine his legal position as an investigative journalist who knew he was entering a new publishing space that exceeded the current ceiling of journalism in Egypt.

Interrogated by military intelligence, Bahgat was then referred to the military prosecution, which detained Bahgat for four days pending further investigations. The hours Bahgat spent while being interrogated by the military intelligence were enough to make him the focal point of local and international attention given his outstanding status as a human rights activist, over and above the value he created for himself in journalism within a short time.

Having worked for some time at Cairo Times, an English-speaking Egyptian magazine, Bahgat launched EIPR in 2002 and entered two challenging domains of human rights – religious minorities and gender issues – at a time when Egypt’s human rights sphere was primarily focused on issues like torture in detention and legal and constitutional reform.

Thanks to Bahgat’s strict research methodology, the EIPR turned into an institution producing the most credible reports on Egypt as well as a major local human rights institution employing the best Egyptian researchers in personal rights. Following the January revolution, EIPR expanded to include the rights of housing, environment, education, health, economic and social rights, and religious freedoms.

Having left EIPR and relinquishing the opportunity to remain its CEO forever, Bahgat took on a new challenge during a period of severely restricted freedom of public work. In 2013, he quit EIPR and had a one-year fellowship at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. One year later, he returned to Egypt to work as an investigative journalist at madamasr.com.

Madamasr, a relatively unknown and independent website, Bahgat produced a number of investigative reports that drew the attention of mainstream media outlets. He and the website’s editor Lina Atallah published the Saudi documents leaked by WikiLeaks about the strong ally of the Egyptian regime after July 3, 2013. Madamasr.com was thus the sole Egyptian media outlet that dared to publish classified materials on Saudi foreign policy in Egypt and the world, including the use of petrodollars to buy political and media influence.

This reveals the importance of working in a media outlet with a considerable publishing freedom, and an almost nonexistent space of complex political calculations that characterize the present political, media and financial landscape in Egypt.

Before he responded to the summons by the military intelligence, Bahgat published a poem entitled ‘Everything is Alright’ by Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti on his Facebook page. He relied on a single logic, which he thought was sufficiently justifiable for his case. “I published a report supported by official documents, and everything is alright and legal,” said Bahgat on his page. “However, the intelligence officers and the military investigator have another opinion: a military offense.”