Ramy Essam is an Egyptian musician who received the VĂĄclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent (2019). He is best known for his performance in Tahrir Square in Cairo during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. His song Irhal, in which then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was urged to resign is referred to as the anthem of the revolution and was selected in 2011 by Time Out as the third-most world-changing song of all time. As a result of his music and activism, on 9 March 2011 Ramy was arrested and held in custody for four hours, during which he was beaten and tortured. His songs were banned in Egypt, he was threatened on national TV by high-level public officials and forbidden to perform public shows. In 2014 Ramy arrived in Sweden seeking a better and freer environment to create and perform his music. In 2018 Avant-Garde Lawyers succeeded in detangling a complex immigration issue regarding his legal status in Sweden and obtained a favorable decision from the Swedish Migration Agency.
Intervention Team:
- Legal Strategy and Case Management: AGL
- Liaison : Val Denn (CEO Val Denn Agency)
- Local Immigration Lawyer: Nicklas Dahlbeck (Stockholms AdvokatbyrÄ)
- Partner Organisation: Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI)
Special note of thanks to Sanjay Sethi (Sethi and Mazaheri, LLC) and Mattew Covey (CoveyLaw).