LONDON (AP) — A Nobel laureate organization on Wednesday suggested world leaders raise human rights issues on their scale in Egypt for the COP27 weather update conference.
In a letter sent to heads of state, the 15-Nobel laureate organization called on visiting diplomats and politicians to “devote part of their time to the thousands of political prisoners held in Egyptian jails. “activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, as he intensifies his hunger strike on the first day of the conference.
Abdel-Fattah’s circle of relatives said he began a hunger strike on Tuesday and planned to start living without water from Nov. 6, the first day of the foreign weather convention. His circle of relatives expressed concern that without water he would die sooner. the end of the convention on November 18.
Abdel-Fattah, an outspoken dissident and British citizen, rose to prominence with the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East and toppled President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. The 40-year-old activist has spent most of the past decade in bars and his detention has become a symbol of Egypt’s return to autocratic rule.
As the convention approaches, there are signs that a new wave of government repression is underway, which has lasted for years. On Wednesday, 12 human rights organizations, in addition to the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights, released a report documenting a series of arrests. who have taken a stand in recent days. The arrests are related to calls for demonstrations on November 11 to protest the government’s new economic policies. The report says at least 138 Egyptians have been arrested and detained in various parts of the country. of joining an illegal organization and spreading fake news, such as Abdel-Fattah.
The report also states that Indian activist Ajit Rajagopal and his Egyptian lawyer were arrested by Egyptian security and detained for 24 hours after Rajagopal tried to march from Cairo to Sharm el-Sheikh to raise awareness about climate change. Both were released on Monday, according to the report, and it was shown through Rajagopal’s lawyer, Makarios Lahzy, in a social media post.
As outside news focuses on Egypt ahead of the weather summit in the Red Sea city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Abdel-Fattah’s circle of relatives is pushing for his release. Headquarters of the office to pressure the UK to act on your case.
The government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, America’s best friend with deep economic ties to European countries, has relentlessly silenced dissidents and cracked down on independent organizations for years with arrests and restrictions. Many of the leading activists involved in the 2011 uprising fled the country or are most recently in prison, most so under a draconian law passed in 2013 that banned all street protests. Human Rights Watch estimates that there are more than 60,000 bars for political prisoners.
Organizers said the letter was sent to U. N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, U. S. President Joe Biden and U. S. meteorological envoy John Kerry, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, King Charles III, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz, as well as other foreign leaders. .
Max Blain, spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, said Wednesday that the British government was “making its case at the highest point of the Egyptian government” and was “working hard to secure the release of Alaa Abdel-Fattah. “Blain said he can simply not say whether Sunak would raise the case when he attended COP27.
An Egyptian government media official responded to a request for comment on the distribution of the letter.
He signed through Nobel laureates Svetlana Alexievich, J. M. Coetzee, Annie Ernaux, Louise Glück, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elfriede Jelinek, Mario Vargas Llosa, Patrick Modiano, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Roger Penrose, George Smith, Wole Soyinka and Olga Tokarczuk.
Abdel-Fattah is also a writer. The epistolary crusade was arranged through two publishers that distributed his writings, Ediciones Fitzcarraldo and Seven Stories Press. His latest collection of essays, some of which were written from inside a criminal cell, is titled “They Haven’t TYou Defeated Yet. “It was published in April and deals with issues of global injustice, adding climate change.