UK foreign minister in Egypt to push for activist’s release

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy visits Cairo on Thursday to press local officials to release a jailed British-Egyptian pro-democracy campaigner.Alaa Abdel Fattah was arrested by Egyptian authorities in September 2019 and handed a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” in a Facebook post on torture in Egypt’s prisons.His British-born mother, 68-year-old Laila Soueif, has spent 115 days on hunger strike and has vowed not to eat until he is freed.”The UK remains committed to securing the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah and this will be a focus of the Foreign Secretary’s meeting in Egypt today,” a British government official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP.”We continue to raise his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian government so he can be reunited with his family.”Fattah, 43, was a key figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak and was given British citizenship in 2022 through Soueif.His mother has urged Lammy to “bring Alaa back with him on the plane.””I am tired of being on hunger strike and I am tired of sitting outside Downing Street waiting to die,” she said.”I don’t know how much time I have left, and I desperately want to see my son a free man.”She added that Lammy “should be able to secure Alaa’s release on this visit and bring my son back to his family in the UK.”Last week, Lammy told parliament that freeing Fattah was the “number one issue” for the foreign ministry.Free media campaign group Reporters Without Borders said Thursday “now is the time to prove” that.Lammy “should not return to London until he has secured Alaa’s release, and an end to his family’s ordeal,” UK director Fiona O’Brien said in a statement.The foreign secretary is also expected to discuss the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the conflict in Sudan while in Cairo.

 

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:27:23 GMT

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