CAIRO (Reuters) – The family of one of Egypt’s most prominent human rights activists, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, said on Monday he had obtained British citizenship as part of a campaign to win his release from prison and spotlight the plight of fellow detainees.
Abd el-Fattah, a leading activist in Egypt’s 2011 uprising, was arrested in 2019, and in December was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading fake news and is in his 10th day of a hunger strike against his detention and alleged abuses in prison.
His family says he has been kept in a cell without sunlight for two and a half years, deprived of books and exercise, after being convicted in an unfair trial. They say he has suffered abuse and witnessed worse abuse against fellow prisoners.
Egyptian authorities could not be reached for comment.
The Egyptian government has previously denied accusations concerning prison conditions, and has defended judicial decisions against foreign criticism, including over Abd el-Fattah’s conviction.
Since 2013, when then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, there has been a far-reaching crackdown on political dissent that has swept up liberals and leftists, as well as Islamists. Human rights groups say tens of thousands have been jailed.
Sisi, who became president in 2014, says security and stability are paramount and denies there are political prisoners in Egypt.
Abd el-Fattah had previously been jailed for five years in 2014.
His family, which has a history of political activism, said in a statement that they did not explore the option of British citizenship until 2019, when “it became clear that Sisi’s prisons would refuse to release our family and we had to find some way out of this impossible ordeal.”
They said he obtained British nationality through his mother, who was born in London.
As a British citizen, Abd el-Fattah is demanding prison visits by British consular officials and to communicate with lawyers in Britain so they can take legal measures against alleged violations, his family said.
A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office said consular access to a British national had been requested, without elaborating.
(Reporting by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
