Alaa Abdel Fattah

Democracy activist

Egypt was once the hope of the Arab Spring, but now with General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in charge a distinct chill has set in. Blogger and pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah took part in the 2011 protests; during the years since, he has been imprisoned several times. In 2021, a collection of his writings, some of them smuggled out of jail on scraps of paper, was published as You Have Not Been Defeated. This April, he went on hunger strike to draw attention to his plight. Fattah is a joint British-Egyptian citizen, and his supporters are appealing to the Foreign Office to push for his case.