CAIRO (AP) — The circle of relatives of jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah said Friday they have requested a presidential pardon for him because of his health problems after a months-long hunger strike.
“Please locate attached the text of the clemency application I submitted today, confirming. . . my willingness to take everything to have legal strategies that ensure a solution to my brother’s crisis,” his sister Mona Seif wrote on Twitter.
This comes after the activist stepped up a months-long hunger strike and stopped drinking water when the COP27 climate summit began last Sunday at the Egyptian hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Egypt has granted presidential pardons to a total of 766 political prisoners since a pardon policy was revived in April this year, according to data compiled by Amnesty International.
But in the same period, nearly double that number were jailed for their activism, according to Amnesty.
On Thursday, Egypt’s prosecutor said the jailed dissident’s “vital symptoms . . . are normal” and that “he is in good physical condition and wants to be taken to the hospital,” amid considerations about his physical condition.
His sister responded at the time by calling the prosecutor’s comments a “lie” and adding that the government intervened by force to “deny” his hunger strike “so that he does die. “
Abdel Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, who tried to access the prison where he is being held, reported that “a medical intervention has been taken. . . with the wisdom of judicial authorities,” Seif wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
US President Joe Biden made a lightning stop in Egypt on Friday for the UN COP27 climate talks and raised the issue of human rights in a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The White House had previously expressed “deep concern” about Abdel Fattah, after the activist’s lawyer said he had been denied, even though he was allowed such a stopover through the Interior Ministry.
Abdel Fattah, a key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak, is serving a five-year sentence for “spreading fake news” by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.
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