After a seven-month period in which he fed himself “100 calories a day,” the 40-year-old British-Egyptian stopped drinking water on Sunday as world leaders gathered for the opening of the global climate summit in Egypt.
On Tuesday, a day after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his fate, UN human rights leader Volker Turk and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz demanded his release.
Abdel Fattah, who is recently serving a five-year sentence for “spreading fake news” for reposting a Facebook post about police brutality, made headlines at the UN summit, intensifying attention on Egypt’s rights record.
A key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah granted British citizenship this year through his British-born mother, Laila Soueif.
Soueif — who camped the criminal outdoors for two days in hopes of obtaining a letter as proof of life, according to his daughter Mona Seif — warns his son that many are “only one or two or 3 days at most. “
In a Facebook post, Soueif appealed to world leaders at the COP27 summit than to Egyptian authorities, whom he accused of having “so much blood on their hands. “
COP27 activists posted prolifically on Twitter with the hashtag #FreeAlaa and several speakers ended their speeches with the words “they have not yet been defeated,” the name of their book, with a foreword by Canadian Naomi Klein.
Sunak said Monday that the case is “a priority,” that it is not easy for it to be “resolved as temporarily as possible. “
Macron said he had obtained assurances that Sisi is “committed to making sure that Alaa Abdel Fattah’s physical fitness is maintained” and that the scenario will be resolved “in the coming weeks and months. “
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday that “his release will have to be possible, so that this hunger strike does not end in death,” adding that “we will have to fear that this could have terrible consequences. “
Turk said he “deeply regrets” that Egypt has released Abdel Fattah, warning that his “life is in wonderful danger. “
On Tuesday, a press conference organized by Abdel Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif, on the sidelines of the COP27 summit at Sharm el-Sheikh’s Red Sea hotel was interrupted by an Egyptian parliamentarian.
“We are talking about an Egyptian citizen detained for a crime of fraud, he is not a political prisoner,” said pro-government lawmaker Amr Darwish, who was escorted from a COP27 room through UN security. The West opposed Egypt. “
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, president of COP27, told CNBC TV that Abdel Fattah, whose dual nationality Cairo does not recognize, has to “all mandatory care in prison. “
Sanaa Seif said Shoukry’s statement on “care” raises concerns about her brother’s “force-feeding” with IV drops.
“Is he handcuffed to a bed, against his will?”She.
Cairo has faced growing complaints over its long-lamented human rights record since it announced itself as hosting last year’s COP27 weather summit, a move through human rights teams that “rewards the repressive Sisi regime. “
Three Egyptian bloodhounds also went on hunger strike for a moment, not easy “that of all political prisoners in Egypt. “
Human rights teams say the prisoners number around 60,000, a claim denied by Cairo.
Abdel Fattah’s continued detention comes as Egypt has granted presidential pardons to a total of 766 political prisoners since the revival of a pardon policy in April this year, according to data compiled by Amnesty.
But in the same period, nearly double that number were jailed for their activism, according to Amnesty.