Draft:Abdelrahman ElGendy

Abdelrahman ElGendy (عبد الرحمن الجندي) is an Egyptian writer and public speaker from Cairo, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A former six-year political prisoner in Egypt, he was detained from 2013 to 2020.

Early Life and Education
ElGendy was arrested at the age of 17 in Cairo during a protest against the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état in Egypt, was mis-tried as an adult instead of a minor,  and sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security prison. ElGendy spent over six years in prison, where he earned a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Ain Shams University. He was retried as a minor and released in January 2020.

Career
ElGendy's writing focuses on political and social issues of the Middle East and the Arab diasporic experience. His writing appears in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Guernica, AGNI, Mizna, Mada Masr, and elsewhere. ElGendy is the recipient of the EU-presented Samir Kassir Freedom of Press Award,  the Courage to Write Award by the de Groot Foundation, the Steinbeck Fellowship by San Jose State University, and the Heinz Fellowship by the University of Pittsburgh's Global Studies Center.

Advocacy and Public Speaking
ElGendy advocates for Egyptian political prisoners locally and in the US. His speaking engagements include appearances at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and elsewhere.