The family of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British activist and author imprisoned in Egypt, are calling on the UK government as well as the Egyptian authorities to ensure he walks free at the end of this month after five years in detention.
“Let’s remember that this is an innocent man who has committed no crime, but even so he will have served his time on 29 September,” said Abd el-Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif.
Abd el-Fattah’s family fear what rights groups have described as Egypt’s “revolving door” detention system where political prisoners are hit with fresh charges to prevent them from going free.
Seif said she hoped the Egyptian authorities could prove responsive to the new government in London if it were to state that Abd el-Fattah had served his time and should be freed. She said David Lammy, the foreign secretary, was “well placed to deliver” her brother’s freedom if he chooses to act.
Lammy has previously championed Abd el-Fattah’s case, accusing the former Conservative government of letting down British citizens by failing to take action. While Lammy has not addressed Abd el-Fattah’s case publicly since taking office, Seif and her family hope he will do in government what he demanded while in opposition.
Abd el-Fattah, a figurehead of Egypt’s 2011 uprising that overthrew the former dictator Hosni Mubarak, has spent the majority of the last decade in detention for his activism, mostly after a sweeping anti-democratic crackdown by President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup a decade ago.
The 42-year-old computer programmer and blogger, known for his writing about countering authoritarianism, was detained five years ago when authorities swept up well-known activists during a brief spate of anti-government protests.
He became a British citizen while incarcerated in December 2021 through his mother, the human rights activist Laila Soueif. That month he was sentenced to five years in detention, accused of “spreading false news and undermining national security”, for sharing a social media post about torture.
Abd el-Fattah’s family say the upcoming date marking the end of his five years in prison, including a prolonged spell in pre-trial detention in a maximum-security prison where he was tortured on arrival, presents an opportunity for both governments.
The US state department’s most recent human rights report on Egypt cites “reports of significant numbers of political prisoners and detainees”, including Abd el-Fattah, and rights groups say little to no progress has been made on this issue.
The state department said this month it would seek congressional approval to grant Egypt an annual maximum in $1.3bn military aid. For the first time under Joe Biden, the state department said it would request that Cairo receive a portion of this sum normally conditioned on Egypt making tangible progress on human rights, including $95m tied to reducing the numbers of political prisoners, which several senators said Egypt had failed to do.
Seif said: “The just thing would be for Alaa to have never served this sentence as he didn’t commit a crime, he posted on social media about torture, but we’re not even attempting to reach the just thing, just for the Egyptian authorities to stop renewing his unfair punishment. This is not a high bar.
“David Lammy is now the foreign minister, he needs to find a way to communicate to the Egyptian authorities that it’s not acceptable that Alaa stays beyond his sentence.”
As the shadow foreign secretary, Lammy was pictured standing alongside Seif and her family when she staged a days-long sit-in, sleeping outside the Foreign Office in Whitehall in October 2022 to demand that the then foreign secretary, James Cleverly, meet them to explain how the government was acting to free Abd el-Fattah.
Lammy told BBC Radio 4 a month later: “We have a £4bn trade deal with Egypt, that is tremendous leverage. Why has it taken months and months for the Foreign Office to act? I’ve been asking for them to act, and I’ve got to tell you that UK citizens have been badly let down.”
While Egyptian authorities readily acknowledged Seif’s British citizenship, acquired during her own detention in Egypt four years ago, they have so far stonewalled efforts to acknowledge her brother’s. The Labour party pledged to introduce the right to consular assistance “in cases of human rights violations” in its most recent manifesto.
“As the bare minimum, the Egyptian authorities have to acknowledge Alaa’s British citizenship,” Seif said. “It was insulting that they did this under the Conservative government, that the former prime minister spoke about Alaa but the other side didn’t acknowledge it, while the British government did nothing about this and relations were fine.”
Despite the former prime minister Rishi Sunak telling Seif that his government was “totally committed to resolving your brother’s case”, many British officials declined to use opportunities to discuss Abd el-Fattah’s detention with their Egyptian counterparts.
Seif said: “We have a new government, and hopefully all of this was in the past, so I am hoping there is going to be a different attitude.”