Mansour is an Egyptian-American democracy and human rights advocate, best known for his work defending journalists and helping Arab Spring organizers, as well as for his research expertise in foreign policy. Most recently, he served as the Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, where he managed an international team of researchers and advocates on issues of press freedom, government censorship and surveillance, and journalist safety. Before CPJ, he worked as Senior Program Officer with Freedom House where he managed a multi-million dollar project training democracy activists across the Arab world.
Over the past twenty years, Mansour has provided expert testimonies in Congress, published in the Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, LA Times, Foreign Policy, and appeared live on multiple television outlets, including CNN, BBC, France 24, and Al Jazeera English. He has been recognized for his work by the Diplomatic Courier as a top foreign policy professional and was awarded a Tufts Alumni Award for his human rights work.
He has a master’s in international relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a bachelor’s in education from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University.
My road to becoming an advocate
This is a memoir of resistance, of refusing to bow to fear, and of daring to speak the truth even when it seems the world is against you.
**1987**
They came for my father when I was seven.
I remember the chaos of that night vividly. It began with the abrupt opening of my bedroom door, the light spilling in as a dozen Egyptian police officers stormed our small three-bedroom Cairo apartment. Guns pointed at us, orders barked, and the relentless sound of drawers being emptied and furniture overturned—all of it pressed into my memory like a brand.
My brothers and I clung to our mother as the officers dragged my father out of the apartment. I didn’t know where they were taking him, only that he might never come back. Forty days later, he did return. But he carried the weight of those days in his silence, and though he didn’t speak of it, we knew our lives would never be the same again.
**1997**
By the time I was seventeen, it was my turn.
The knock came early in the morning, and when I opened the door, a police officer handed me a crumpled slip of paper with my name scrawled on it. It was a summons to State Security. My father told me two things before I left: “Tell the truth. We did nothing wrong. And this is the bus you’ll take to get there.” He knew the route all too well.
At the interrogation complex, they blindfolded me. A security officer asked why I didn’t pray. “Why is that a matter of national security?” I asked. He didn’t answer. After hours of questioning, they let me go.
Later, I learned why they’d summoned me. It was connected to my encounter with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi during a university event. I had asked him a question—an unstaged, unscripted question. I don’t remember the words, but I remember the horror in the eyes of the professors and students watching. My father’s smile was the only one in the crowd.
That day changed me. It was the last time I read from a prepared script. I decided to speak my mind, no matter the consequences.
**2004**
In 2004, I came face-to-face with another dictator: Hosni Mubarak.
It wasn’t a direct confrontation this time, but I remember the moment vividly. Mubarak, visibly frail, paused on a stairwell near me during an event at the Alexandria Bibliotheca. He leaned on a cane, trying to project strength. I had a terrible thought: *What if I pushed him?*
But I dismissed it just as quickly. Mubarak didn’t deserve to die a hero. Instead, I vowed to help expose his fraudulent elections and mobilize peaceful resistance. Seven years later, that vow would help bring his regime to its knees.
**2007**
By 2007, I had begun working for Freedom House in Washington, D.C., advocating for human rights and using technology to advance freedom of speech. That year, my cousin was arrested in Egypt after meeting me at a conference in Qatar.
I began researching ways to use technology to expose repression. Tools like Skype and open-source software like Ushahidi became essential for documenting election fraud in real-time, but the Egyptian government was watching.
When I returned to Egypt after Mubarak’s fall in 2011, I saw my security file for the first time. It detailed how officials had hacked my Skype conversations using software from a British company. “This is outsourcing oppression,” I told the BBC.
**2012**
I became a US citizen in 2012, but that didn’t shield me from Egypt’s reach.
I learned on Twitter that the Egyptian government had named me a fugitive. They issued an Interpol Red Notice, accusing me of crimes tied to my human rights work. I quit my job and returned to Egypt to face the charges.
On June 4, 2012, I entered a courtroom cage in handcuffs. Dozens of my family members and supporters erupted in chants of “Down with military rule!” Their voices carried me through that moment, a reminder that our fight was far from over.