Background
He was born in Egypt in 1938 and in 1960 graduated from the School of Arts with a degree in Journalism.
He was born in Egypt in 1938 and in 1960 graduated from the School of Arts with a degree in Journalism.
At the time of his death of cancer, he was the General Secretary of the Union of Arab Journalists. Upon graduation he started working for both First Rate (at Lloyd's) Akhbar and At Taawon before moving to First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Ahram in 1965 and supervising the international edition of the daily called "First Rate (at Lloyd's) Ahram ad Duwali" and was editor-in-chief of the magazine Dirasaat I"lamiyyah (tr Media Studies). He was elected as General Secretary of the Union of Egyptian Journalists for periods 1968-1971 and 1973-1977.
He was elected as General Secretary of the Union of Arab Journalists for one year in 1976 and after the headquarters were moved from Baghdad, Iraq to Cairo, Egypt, for more than a decade (1996- November 2008) until the time of his death.
Salah Eddin Hafez was also a well-known independent writer with 12 books to his name that tackled subjects of the media, democracy, Arab-Israeli conflict and the Third World amongst others His weekly articles every Wednesday morning were published in First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Ahram and concurrently in 5 other Arab publications and was at many a time critical of the Arab regimes including those of Egypt.
He died of cancer on 16 November 2008 and buried in the region of 6th of October City, in northern Egypt.
His writings defended the civil rights of the disadvantaged or minorities, tackled many times issues of freedom of expression and social justice.