CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s criminal government has medically operated on jailed pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who this week stepped up his hunger strike and stopped drinking water, his family circle said Thursday, calling for his release. his fate coincides with the celebration in Egypt of the UN meteorological summit.
A lawyer for the family, Khaled Ali, said in a tweet that he had been allowed to stop in Abdel-Fattah in prison without delay on Thursday, the fifth day the activist left without drinking water or eating calories.
The nature of the medical intervention is unknown and it is not clear whether he had been transferred to a criminal hospital. Family members expressed fear that criminal officials were force-feeding Abdel-Fattah, which they said would amount to torture. Abdel-Fattah said in an earlier letter that he was willing to die in a prison if he was not released.
Abdel-Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, waits each and every day this week outdoors at the Wadi el-Natrun criminal complex in the desert north of Cairo in search of proof of her son’s life. She said Thursday that criminal officials spoke to ella. de doors the criminal doors still refused to take a letter from her for her son.
She asked them if her son would undergo medical surgery and they said yes. He asked ‘if it was forced, and they said no’ and they said, ‘Alaa is fine,'” he told The Associated Press.
“I want proof of this. I don’t accept it as truth with them,” he said. The family circle said in a statement that his lawyers did not have easy information on the merits of the “medical intervention” and that Abdel-Fattah would not be present. Delayed transferred to a civilian hospital.
At least 40 prisoners have died in Egyptian prisons this year, according to the al-Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence. Among them was Alaa al-Salmi, who died in late October after several weeks on hunger strike.
Abdel-Fattah, who has been in prison for the past decade, is serving a five-year sentence for spreading fake news for retweeting a 2019 report that the offender died in custody.
Abdel-Fattah rose to prominence with the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East and toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Yes, yes.
He had been on a partial hunger strike of one hundred calories a day for six months. He gave up all calorie intake and began refusing water on Sunday, the first day of the global climate summit held at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh hotel. Fattah’s younger sister, Sanaa Seif, attended the conference, aiming to draw public attention to her case.
Egypt of the occasion attracted greater foreign attention to its heavy repression of political speech and activity. Since 2013, el-Sisi’s government has cracked down on dissent and critics, jailing thousands, virtually banning protests and tracking social media.
At the Sharm el-Sheikh rally, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised the activist’s case in their talks with el-Sisi. Abdel-Fattah received British citizenship through his mother, who was born in London.
Speaking to the AP Thursday at the climate conference, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry declined to answer questions about Abdel-Fattah, warning that some countries were the factor that diverted attention from climate commitments.
“Other problems that are not directly climate-like can simply divert attention and. . . give a justification to those who prefer to focus on other problems to avoid having to deal with what they have to do, how they enforce their obligations and responsibilities,” he said.
“So, again, it’s up to the parties to decide on the issues that are most vital to them,” he said.
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