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PEN International and English PEN have condemned the failure of Rishi Sunak and the British government to secure the release of British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah, despite their pledge in 2022 to work “hard to secure his release”.
They state that the UK’s inability to secure Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s release for over eight months after Sunak’s meeting with the Egyptian President in Sharm El-Sheikh is “profoundly disappointing”.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah is a British-Egyptian citizen, an award-winning writer and software developer, and an Honorary Member of English PEN. He is serving a retaliatory five-year prison sentence in Egypt following a “grossly unfair” trial before The Emergency State Security Court, PEN states.
The sentence, handed down in December 2021, has been widely condemned by leading international human rights organisations, including PEN International, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Human Rights Watch.
According to his family, Abd El-Fattah has been subjected to torture and ill-treatment in detention on multiple occasions since his imprisonment. PEN states that the Egyptian authorities have “failed to adequately investigate Abd El-Fattah’s allegations of torture and ill-treatment, despite a series of complaints filed by him and his family since September 2019". For over two years, he was denied access to basic necessities, including a mattress, bed sheets, books and newspapers.
Abd El-Fattah is denied access to a lawyer and UK consular visits and is prevented from accessing necessities, including medication such as blood glucose and blood pressure monitors. On 1st November 2022, his family announced that he had decided to escalate his hunger strike, which began in April 2022, to protest his arbitrary imprisonment and detention conditions. He spent more than six months on hunger strike, and concerns for his health and life were mounting for months.
According to the organisation, Egyptian authorities maintain a harsh crackdown on freedom of expression, expanding online censorship, curtailing press freedom, and widening the use of counter-terrorism legislation and “fake news” charges to silence critics. Hundreds of independent news, politics, and human rights websites are blocked in Egypt.
PEN states: “We repeat our call on the UK government to uphold its pledge and take all necessary actions to end Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s ordeal and ensure his freedom. We urge the UK government to do all in their power to to provide a consular visit at the earliest possible opportunity and secure the release of British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah.”
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