Quite  long condition. My proposal is to compare two dictionaries:

  rq_data = {k: self.requests_data[rq][k] for k in ('request', 'review', 'by', 'by_who')}
  rq_test = {
    'request': 'review',
    'review': 'new',
    'by': 'project',
    'by_who': prj
  }
  if rq_data == rq_test:
    ....