Ex-ambassador warns of striker’s starvation scenario after Rishi Sunak’s meeting with Egyptian president
The release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the detained Anglo-Egyptian pro-democracy activist who is on hunger strike, has the defining factor in Anglo-Egyptian relations, warned former British ambassador to Egypt John Casson.
His comments came as Abd el-Fattah’s aunt, novelist Ahdaf Soueif, said there is a danger that Britons “will be fooled with the excuses that have been given to them since last December, when we started requesting consular visits. “
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday night on the sidelines of the Cop27 convention and later said he had discussed Abd el-Fattah’s fate, but nothing really extensive about his release has yet emerged. Abd el-Fattah, a pivotal figure in the Arab Spring, is on hunger strike and refuses to drink water.
Casson, who served as the UK’s ambassador to Egypt from 2014 to 2018, said “the next 24 to 48 hours are crucial” and that now that Sunak has had his meeting, “today it is vital that through the British government, the formula mobilises to make sure the Egyptian government realises that we mean it. “
He added: “It is vital that intelligence and the military in the UK tell their counterparts in Egypt what is at stake. The way Egypt works is that they realize that one factor is at the center of dating if communicated through the military and intelligence. Then they realize that this is the defining factor of our dating now.
Abd el-Fattah’s life was in danger, Casson said. “It’s not just one of the ruthless things that happen, it’s created through possible choices that other people take in Egypt. It is a basic duty of the government to protect our citizens. “, and I don’t know what else we think we’re protecting by holding back at this point. This is the time of maximum pressure.
He questioned whether Sunak met with Sisi before receiving assurances that the British embassy was gaining his fundamental rights of consular access. Continue to give them what they need for free, they will sit back and ask for more.
He said the Foreign Ministry is concentrating on what works. “He will have to explain very clearly the long-term consequences for military exchanges, intelligence relations, industry and investment so that Egypt does not feel that it is not normalized and politically adopted. “
Casson said the British government deserves if it deserves to continue providing the access it does to Egyptian officials given that Egypt blocks consular access to a British citizen.
He described Abd el-Fattah as a person with vision and values for Egypt’s future, but the Egyptian government turns out to be concerned and persecuting him.
He said the case raised the question of whether the UK “needs a more serious look after Brexit to know where we are with our international relations and to better perceive the strength we have now and how we use it. “For the last seven years, in many ways, we haven’t had a foreign policy in the sense that we understood it before, in terms of a global vision that we need to live in, backed by a genuine perception of our strength and our influence and the cards we have to play.
He added: “It’s hard to call the problems Britain has run on around the world,” saying it “was partly because British diplomats had been traumatised by Brexit and had become very timid. “
He said that “a succession of prime ministers and foreign ministers were distracted by domestic political signals and therefore there was no sustained attention to achieve the effects we need. “