Family urges UK Government to do more to free jailed British-Egyptian writer

The family of a jailed British-Egyptian pro-democracy writer have urged the UK Government to try harder to secure his release.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah, 42, has been detained since September 29 2019 and in December 2021 was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spreading false news.

The Free Alaa campaign said he should have been released last month and his 68-year-old mother Laila Soueif is on day 23 of her hunger strike in protest over his continued imprisonment in Egypt.

Ms Soueif has travelled from Cairo to London this week to press MPs and ministers over her son’s case.

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Mr Abd El-Fattah has spent most of the past decade in prison because of his criticism of Egypt’s rulers and is unable to see his young son who lives in Brighton.

The UK Government has repeatedly raised Mr Abd El-Fattah’s case with their Egyptian counterparts and on Tuesday pledged to secure his release “as quickly as we possibly can”.

But the family have proposed several diplomatic and economic steps that Britain could pursue to assist Mr Abd El-Fattah’s release, including using trade talks as leverage, changing Foreign Office travel advice to state that consular access is not guaranteed and reaching out to allies.

Ms Soueif, who was born in London, told the PA news agency: “If you just keep raising it and nothing happens then the impression the Egyptians get is it’s just lip service.”

Filmmaker and writer Omar Robert Hamilton, Mr Abd El-Fattah’s cousin, said: “There are lots of tools available to them beyond raising it. They might be doing things that they’re not telling us about and that’s fine, but it doesn’t feel like that.”

He added: “One of the messages often is ‘geopolitics, Gaza, you’ve got to recognise your own position in these things’, but our answer to that is once you cross this five-year mark for us we’ve just gone into this super arbitrary period where if we don’t make as much of a noise now – this is why (Laila) is on hunger strike now – what is the next signpost?”

Ms Soueif also said: “We live in an area where the whole world is being upset, upside down constantly. I cannot wait for these things, I can’t recognise any of that. I am asking for one young man to come out of prison after he has done a five-year unfair sentence.

“For me, and that’s what I tell every MP that I meet, the British Government is complicit because this (Egypt) is a friendly government. This is not Iran, this is not China, this is a friendly government.

“So Alaa, who is binational, is the responsibility of both governments and if he’s being abused by one and the other isn’t doing anything about it, it’s complicit and it’s up to Members of Parliament to hold the Government accountable for its complicity.”

On whether she believed she would have to go on hunger strike to bring attention to the case, Ms Soueif replied: “I really thought at the end of five years it would be possible to just get it done, the Egyptian government wouldn’t look like it’s backing off anything, he’s done his sentence and he can get out and they’d be rid of him and rid of us.”

She added: “I did think quite some time ago that if it became completely desperate, I’m going to do that (hunger strike) and happen what may.”

Mr Hamilton said there has to be an “intervention” and the family was still hopeful the new Labour Government would “turn a new leaf” on the case.

He highlighted Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s previous support for their cause and said they “remain hopeful in him”.

Mr Hamilton added: “We really believe with a little bit of effort and a little bit of grit or robustness, it’s really doable.

“It’s not a kind of fantasy, it’s not divorced from the realities of geopolitics or trade or finance, it’s very doable within the current structure of things without really upsetting much.

“It’s not a naive hope.”

Sanaa Seif, Mr Abd El-Fattah’s sister, said of the UK Government’s approach: “My mother is on hunger strike, today is day 23, I don’t really feel like they are taking it seriously, I don’t think they recognise the seriousness until maybe it’s too late.”

Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer, asked about the case in the Commons on Tuesday as the family watched on, said: “I saw (Laila) in Cairo last week and raised these issues with the Egyptian foreign minister.

“Alaa’s case is very much in our mind, and we will do absolutely everything we can to secure his release as quickly as we possibly can.”