British PM affirms commitment to Abd El Fattah’s release as activist begins water strike

The British government is “totally committed” to resolving the case of prominent imprisoned activist and writer Alaa Abd El Fattah, and will call for his release at the highest levels of the Egyptian government, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged today in a letter addressed to Abd El Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif.

Sunak said the UK’s attendance at the COP27 climate summit, which begins today in Sharm el-Sheikh, “is another opportunity” to raise Abd El Fattah’s case with the Egyptian leadership, adding that he will also press to allow urgent consular access to him.

The prime minister’s pledge is the highest-level response thus far from the British government to the campaign launched this year by the family of Abd El Fattah, who holds both British and Egyptian citizenship. Since April, when Abd El Fattah began a partial hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions in detention, the family have called on British officials to leverage their political influence and pressure the Egyptian government for his release ahead of COP27.

The activist’s sisters, Mona and Sanaa, had said they met British foreign office officials and spoke by phone to UK Foreign Secretary James Clevery, who promised that Abd El Fattah’s case would be a priority in the UK’s talks with Egyptian authorities in the coming period.

Abd El Fattah, whose name has circulated prominently among activists pushing for the release of thousands of political prisoners in Egypt, drank one last glass of water yesterday. His mother, Layla Soueif, told Mada Masr last week that her son planned to escalate his partial hunger strike — during which he consumed just 100 calories per day — to a full strike, refusing all food as of November 1, and water starting November 6, in tandem with the launch of COP27.

The activist and writer, one of the leading figures associated with the 2011 revolution, has been in prison for the majority of the past nine years. Six months after he was released from a five-year prison term on charges of demonstrating without a permit, he was arrested again in September 2019 and held for two years in remand detention without trial. He was sentenced in December 2021 to another five years in prison for “spreading false news.”

Sunak’s letter comes after Abd El Fattah’s family intensified the campaign calling on British officials to intervene. Mona and Sanaa Seif gave a press conference on Thursday outside the London Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where Sanaa held a two-week sit-in. The sisters and activists stated that if the British prime minister and foreign secretary do not exert real efforts ahead of the climate summit to secure the release of Abd El Fattah, the Egyptian government would consider the inaction “a green light to kill” their brother. 

“I will be going to attend the UN climate conference COP27 myself, as Alaa escalates his hunger strike, as he stops taking water, as world leaders head to Egypt to attend COP27,” said Sanaa, “I want to tell these officials that if you don’t save him, you will have blood on your hands.” Abd El Fattah’s family have voiced concern about his deteriorating health following their visits to him in detention facilities, where authorities are yet to make official record of the fact that he is on strike. Last week, 47-year-old Alaa al-Salmy, another prisoner who had initiated a full hunger strike to protest inhumane prison conditions, died after two months on strike, without receiving any medical attention or care from the Badr prison complex authorities, the Egyptian Network for Human Rights reported.

Seif addressed Sunak at the time and urged him to intervene on her brother’s behalf, as the prime minister will be meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi “in the same country as a British citizen who is dying.”

The British government’s promises to Abd El Fattah’s family come as Egypt’s human rights situation has come under intensified scrutiny ahead of the launch of the climate summit. Voices from different quarters, including reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, a European Parliament resolution, a petition that amassed 1,400 signatories from local and international organizations and parliamentarians in 86 countries, a letter from over a dozen Nobel laureates, and editorials in major publications, have warned against COP27 being used to greenwash Egypt’s human rights record and called for the release of all political prisoners in the country.

Thousands of prisoners are held in detention facilities across the country in relation to political charges, of whom nearly 2,000  are reported to be held without trial. While the government has taken steps this year to release some political prisoners, rights advocates have said that the rate of releases is insignificant when compared to the total number still behind bars.

The past few weeks alone witnessed hundreds of new arrests amid a nationwide security crackdown to contain calls to protest on November 11 that have circulated social media on the back of a prolonged economic crisis.