#FreeAlaa: Six months after completing his sentence, detained British-Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah must be freed without further delay
Six months after completing his prison sentence and almost one month into a dangerous hunger strike, British-Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah remains in arbitrary detention in Egypt. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Egypt to release him immediately so he can return to his family in the UK.
Abdel Fattah served a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” after sharing a Facebook post about torture in an Egyptian prison. He completed that sentence on 29 September but the Egyptian authorities did not release him, refusing to recognise the two years he had spent in pre-trial detention. His mother, Laila Soueif, has been on hunger strike ever since, in a desperate bid to get the UK Government to secure her son’s release. On 1 March, Abdel Fattah began a hunger strike of his own.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer telephoned Egyptian President Abdelfattah El-Sisi and discussed the case on 28 February but there has been no substantive update since on diplomatic efforts to free him. Starmer has previously told Abdel Fattah’s family and the UK parliament he will do all he can to secure his release.
“It is deeply shocking that six months after finishing his sentence — and one month since Sir Keir Starmer called President Sisi — Alaa Abdel Fattah remains in jail. The UK cannot allow this injustice to go on any longer. The international community must rally behind Whitehall and demand that Egypt immediately free Alaa so he can finally return to his son Khaled in the UK, and so that he and his mother end their desperate hunger strikes before it’s too late.
Earlier this month, RSF director general Thibaut Bruttin joined 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel laureates, writers, and public figures in urging Sisi to grant Abdel Fattah a presidential pardon. “The world is watching, and history will not forget this act of humanity,” the letter said. “Let history remember not a tragedy, but a reunion: Alaa free, holding his son, and Laila Soueif breaking her fast with the family she so longs to be with.”
Soueif — who moved to a partial hunger strike following Starmer’s call with Sisi — has said that she will return to a full strike at the end of March if there is no substantial progress on her son’s case, despite doctors warning she may not live long if she does so.
Egypt ranks 170 out of 180 countries and territories in the RSF 2024 World Press Freedom Index due to the frequency of censorship, police raids, arrests, shutdowns, sham trials, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions. There are currently 20 journalists imprisoned in Egypt, including Abdel Fattah.
