Despite being scheduled for release on September 29, Egyptian authorities have refused to release Abdel Fattah
Laila Soueif, the mother of imprisoned Egyptian-British political activist and writer Alaa Abdel Fattah, announced on Monday, September 30 that she started a hunger strike to protest Alaa's continued imprisonment. "Once again, the Egyptian authorities have violated their own laws to persecute my son. At this stage. I consider this a kidnapping as well as unlawful detention," Soueif said in a statement.
Alaa Abdel Fattah was arrested on September 29, 2019, and sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading "false information" on social media, after he shared a Facebook post about a prisoner, who died after being tortured. According to Amnesty International, Alaa has been subjected to torture and other types of ill-treatment during his imprisonment.
Although he completed his five-year sentence, including two years of pre-trial detention this week, Alaa was denied his freedom. Alaa's sister, Mona Seif, posted a video on social media on Sunday, stating that the Egyptian authorities "refused a request" to deduct the two years of pre-trial detention from Alaa's sentence in accordance with international legal norms and Egypt's own criminal code. Instead, the authorities counted his sentence as of the date it was ratified, meaning that he will be kept in jail until January 2027.
As Alaa was granted UK citizenship while he was serving in prison through his British-born mother in 2022, his family urged the UK government on Thursday, September 26, to secure his release three days prior to his supposed release date. However, Alaa's sister Mona said it felt like the UK government was "ignoring" the family.
His mother stated, "My son had hope that the British government would secure his release. If they do not, I fear he will spend his entire life in prison. So I am going on hunger strike for him, and I would rather die than allow Alaa to continue to be mistreated in this way."
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy has reportedly failed to meet Abdel Fattah's family or to call publicly for his release, in spite of showing explicit support to Abdel Fattah before the Labour party government came to power last July. The UK's Labour government's own manifesto promises to strengthen support for British nationals detained abroad, and introduce a new right to consular assistance in cases of human rights violations.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Egyptian authorities to release Alaa Abdel Fattah on September 24 upon the completion of his five-year sentence on September 29. CPJ's interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. Yeganeh Rezaian said in a statement: "After serving his five-year sentence, Egyptian-British blogger Alaa Abdelfattah must be released immediately, and all remaining charges against him must be dropped. He deserves to be reunited with his son and family."
Yeganeh also slammed the Egyptian authorities for violating their own law by extending Alaa Abdelfattah's prison sentence by two years. "The Egyptian authorities must uphold their own laws and stop manipulating legal statutes to unjustly imprison Abdelfattah. It is a profound disgrace for Egypt to silence such a vital voice of conscience behind bars," he stated.
While Alaa is one of the most emblematic cases of the broad systematic crackdown on anti-government activists under the reign of Abel Fattah el-Sisi, Alaa was also persecuted by former regimes that ruled Egypt in the past decade. In 2006, Alaa was first arrested for his activism during the era of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, and was imprisoned between 2011 and 2019 intermittently on charges of participation in peaceful protests, or criticism of the government on social media networks.
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"Alaa Abdel Fattah has spent most of the last decade being repeatedly arrested and unjustly imprisoned simply for peacefully exercising his human rights. He is a prisoner of conscience, he should never have been forced to spend a single minute behind bars. The prospect that the authorities could further extend his unlawful imprisonment instead of releasing him is appalling," Amnesty International's Egypt Researcher Mahmoud Shalaby said.
As per 2024 World Press Freedom Index issued by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Egypt is ranked 170 out of 180 countries due to the frequency of censorship, police raids, arrests, shutdowns, sham trials, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions. Furthermore, Abdel Fattah is reportedly one of 17 journalists imprisoned in Egypt, including nine in pre-trial detention, while the Egyptian authorities are seen to have employed pre-trial detention as a tactic to extend the imprisonment of journalists.
