THE GUARDIAN: Government sources say social media posts by British-Egyptian activist do not meet legal bar for such sanction
The Home Office will not strip the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah of his citizenship because his “abhorrent” past social media posts do not meet the legal bar for such a sanction, government sources have said.
Abd el-Fattah, who landed in London from Egypt on Boxing Day, has been at the centre of a political storm over social media posts he published more than a decade ago, including tweets in which he called for Zionists to be killed.
Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” by Abd el-Fattah’s arrival on Friday after the British government helped secure the activist’s release from years in an Egyptian jail. However, the prime minister has since condemned the tweets and said he was unaware of them.
Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has also launched a review looking into “serious information failures” around the case, after successive Tory and Labour governments had lobbied for Abd el-Fattah’s release as a political prisoner.
The activist, who was granted British citizenship while in prison in 2021 through his mother’s birth in the UK, has apologised “unequivocally” for his posts after opposition parties called for him to be deported and his citizenship revoked. » | Rowena Mason, Whitehall editor | Tuesday, December 30, 2026
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