"A Near-death Experience": UK-Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah Nearly Dies on Hunger Strike

Nov 18, 2022 | The family of imprisoned British Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah visited him on Thursday for the first time since he ended his full hunger and water strike, which they say occurred after he collapsed inside his prison shower last week. El-Fattah had intensified his strike on the first day of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to draw international attention to the country's human rights violations and protest his seemingly indefinite imprisonment. We go to Cairo to speak with his aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, who was among the visitors and says El-Fattah may resume his hunger strike if the British government does not more aggressively demand his release. "It really breaks my heart to think of him going back on hunger strike when he is so thin and so weak," but the campaign so far "has left no one in any doubt that Alaa should be free," she says.

World leaders at Cop27 Urged to Press Egypt over Prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah

THE GUARDIAN: Global spotlight on host country has heightened scrutiny of human rights record, with Biden due to meet Sisi

An Amnesty International protest about Egyptian human rights, in Rome this week. Photograph: Riccardo Antimiani/Ansa/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock
As Egyptian officials strive to control the narrative and isolate the case of the detained British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, pressure is mounting on world leaders at Cop27 to acknowledge Egypt’s poor human rights record and raise his case.

The Egyptian authorities have engaged in a sweeping public relations campaign to try to discredit Abd el-Fattah, including a digital campaign depicting him as a threat to national security.

A visibly shaken Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister and Cop27 president, told CNN that “this is a judicial matter, the person in question has had a fair trial … there should be respect for the judicial system.” Shoukry also cast doubt on Abd el-Fattah’s dual nationality, after he gained British citizenship while in prison last year. » | Ruth Michaelson | Friday, November 11, 2022

Related articles in French and English here.