Hamdi Qandil

Qandil was born in Cairo in 1936 to a father from Menoufia.

He was the eldest of five children.

Qandil spent much of his childhood and had his primary schooling in the Nile Delta city of Tanta.

His father had moved the middle-income family to that city, where he owned a few feddans of land mostly planted with pears and grapes.

Qandil's father primarily distributed them to neighbors and others close to him.

During Qandil's boyhood, he borrowed and read books from a medical practice and a culture and sporting association in Tanta on a near weekly basis.

He also learned field hockey there.

Qandil was at the top of his class throughout his later school years and initially sought to enter the medical profession, a typical career aspiration for students with high marks.

His mother particularly encouraged him to become a doctor.

Qandil simultaneously took an interest in writing, Arabic calligraphy and foreign languages.

Qandil was introduced to journalism when he began writing a secondary school research paper.

During that time, he also wrote an article for the low-budget Tanta newspaper Al Ikhlas, criticizing King Farouk for spending one million pounds from the treasury to purchase a yacht called the "Mahrousa".

He was fired soon after, but had since grown fond of journalism.

Qandil started his journalism career in the 1950s when he wrote for the Akher Sa'a ("Last Hour") magazine at the invitation of veteran journalist Mustafa Amin.

Due to this new interest and his father's increasingly poor health, Qandil did not complete the first stage of his medical studies, causing his 1952 application to medical school to be rejected.

He instead enrolled in the department of geology at Alexandria University.

In July of that year, King Farouk was overthrown by a group of dissenting officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, leading to the subsequent establishment of a republican system under the presidency of leading officer Muhammad Naguib.

Qandil spent two months studying geology and decided to retake his high school examinations in order to enter into medical school.

He performed well and was admitted to Cairo University's Qasr El-Ainy Faculty of Medicine in 1953.

He continued in his studies until 1956, by which time Nasser had become president.

During this period he also joined the National Guard.

Together with some of his fellow students he founded his college's official magazine, which they printed through the Akhbar el-Yom publishing house.

The magazine's first edition was confiscated due to an article Qandil wrote that was critical of university professors and regulations.

In 1961 he began broadcasting a news show called Aqwal al-Suhuf ("In the Press") until 1969 when he was appointed director of the Arab Broadcasting Studios Union.

In 1971 he left his post in protest at a government inspection of his technical staff.

He later worked with UNESCO from 1974 to 1986, specializing in the field of international media.

In 1987 he co-founded a satellite broadcasting company that later became known as MBC, where he worked for three months before leaving because of political differences with its management.

Qandil briefly presented the show Ma'a Hamdi Qandil ("With Hamdi Qandil") for ART, but left amid disagreements between him and his managers regarding Qandil's planned interviews with Muammar Gaddafi and Tariq Aziz.

He returned to Egyptian television in 1998, hosting the current affairs and press review talk show Ra'is el-Tahrir ("Editor-in-Chief").

The program became one of the most popular and respected in Egypt.

After apparent trouble with the state censors, Qandil moved the show to Dubai TV in 2004 under the name Qalam Rosas ("Pencil").

The new program was highly watched throughout the Arab world.

He was forced to quit Dubai TV after criticizing Arab governments and subsequently hosted the show on the Libyan channel Al-Libiya for two months before the Libyan government cancelled it.

He returned to Egypt and wrote for the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper and then Al-Shorouk, but his association with the latter ended as a result of a libel suit brought on by then-Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in response to a column critical of Egyptian foreign policy written by Qandil in May 2010.

The case was later dropped following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.

Qandil was well known for his pan-Arabist discourse and fierce criticism of the Egyptian and other Arab governments.

According to Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies political analyst Diaa Rashwan, Qandil "is a great Egyptian journalist and highly credible, he is bold and gives constructive criticism ... people listen to him and take what he says seriously, which is why he poses a threat" to the government.

Prior to the Egyptian revolution, Qandil co-founded the National Association for Change, a reformist group headed by Mohamed ElBaradei.

From September 2012, Qandil had lent his support to the Egyptian Popular Current opposition movement.

Hamdi Qandil (حمدي قنديل Ḥamdī Qandīl, also Romanized Qandeel or Kandil; 1936 – 31 October 2018) was a prominent Egyptian journalist, news anchor, talk show host and activist.