It’s been 25 days since September 29, the day that should have seen British-Egyptian blogger, coder, and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah walk free. Egyptian authorities refused to release him at the end of his sentence, in contradiction of the country’s own Criminal Procedure Code, which requires that time served in pretrial detention count toward a prison sentence. In the days since, Alaa’s family has been able to secure meetings with high-level British officials, including Foreign Secretary David Lammy, but as of yet, the Egyptian government still has not released Alaa.
In early October, Alaa was named the 2024 PEN Writer of Courage by PEN Pinter Prize winner Arundhati Roy, who presented the award in a ceremony where it was received by Egyptian publication Mada Masr editor Lina Attalah on Alaa’s behalf.
Alaa’s mother, Laila Soueif, is now on her third week of hunger strike and says that she won’t stop until Alaa is free or she’s taken to the hospital. In recent weeks, Alaa’s mothers and sisters have met with several members of Parliament in the hopes of placing more pressure on officials. As the BBC reports, his family are “deeply disappointed with how the current government, and the previous one, have handled his case” and believe that the UK has more leverage with Egypt that it is not using.
Alaa deserves to finally return to his family, now in the UK, and to be reunited with his son, Khaled, who is now a teenager. We urge EFF supporters in the UK to write to their MP (external link) to place pressure on the UK’s Labour government to use their power to push for Alaa’s release.