The family of a British-Egyptian prisoner on hunger strike are staging a protest in London, hoping global scrutiny of Egypt as it prepares to host a critical climate summit will heap pressure on authorities to release him.
Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah has spent most of the past decade behind bars in Egypt and last December was jailed for five years after being accused of spreading false news.
His sisters Sanaa and Mona Seif and other family members set up camp on Tuesday outside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in Whitehall, intending to stay there until Egypt hosts the United Nations climate conference COP27 next month.
“I feel like they’re not doing anything. They know it’s not hard. If James Cleverly [foreign secretary]… wants it to happen, he will be able to bring my brother home,” Sanaa Seif told Sky News.
“It has been done before. The French have done it with their citizens. Americans have done it.
“We have done it with Iran, which is a hostile country not an ally and Egypt is an ally, it should be easier with an ally than than an enemy,” she said, referring to the release of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
When Liz Truss was foreign secretary she responded to one of the family’s letters to say they continue to raise Alaa’s case, Ms Seif explained.
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“I feel like because the government is busy with internal issues this is not a priority,” she said.
Tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists, environmental groups, and human rights defenders, are imprisoned in Egypt on “terrorism” charges, according to Human Rights Watch.
Observers fear the regime’s restrictions on protest will prevent civil society from participating as usual in the yearly climate conference.
Mr Abd El-Fattah has been on a partial hunger strike in the Cairo jail for 200 days, limiting himself to around 100 calories a day.
Ms Seif added it would be “the worst thing” if the British delegation at COP27 “engages with the Egyptian authorities like diplomacy as usual, as if their citizen dying is not important”.
“It will be really badly interpreted, like a green light to restrict him even more,” she warned.
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