Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh

Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh Abdel Hady, born on 15 October 1951, is an Egyptian physician who became better known as a student activist and politician. He opposed the governments of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, and he was known for openness toward people of other political ideologies, which some Islamist supporters treated as controversial. From the early 1970s he was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and sat on its Guidance Bureau from 1987 until 2009, then left the movement in 2011 when he decided to run for president of Egypt as an independent in the 2011 to 2012 election. He later served as secretary-general of the Arab Medical Union, which ties his public career back to the medical profession. He was arrested on 14 February 2018 after returning from London following an interview in which he criticised the rule of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. This entry records him as a physician whose fame rests mainly on politics rather than clinical work.