The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Mission to free writer gets urgent
The sister of detained writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah fears the Foreign Office is “setting up the prime minister to fail” on his COP27 trip to Egypt because her brother may die there while on hunger strike during the conference.
Rishi Sunak told the family of the British-Egyptian activist in a letter that he will raise their plight with the Egyptian president – but would be updating the family after the climate summit is over, which they say could be too late.
Mr Abd El-Fattah has been imprisoned in Cairo since 2006 over his pro-democracy writing.
He has been on hunger strike in prison, eating only 100 daily calories for the past 200 days, and will stop drinking water as the summit begins to escalate his protest.
Mr Sunak wrote to his family on Saturday saying he was “totally committed” to resolving the case, which he described as “a priority for the British Government both as a human rights defender and as a British national”.
He described COP27 as “another opportunity to raise your brother’s case with the Egyptian leadership” and said Middle East minister Lord Ahmad would update the family on negotiations after the summit – which finishes on November 18.
Mr Abd El-Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif, said she was worried her brother, who looked “very, very frail” last time she saw him, would die before the end of COP27.
She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “It’s good that we have a commitment from the prime minister’s office, but what worried me is he said we would get confirmation after the conference.
“I feel like the prime minister needs to understand the urgency – after the conference it could be too late.
“I know it’s not the prime minister’s mistake, but the Foreign Office, the embassy, they have been working on this for a very long time, and I feel like they are setting up the prime minister to fail in this trip.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The government is working hard to secure his release and continues to raise his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian Government.
“The foreign secretary has spoken to the family this week to assure them we are doing everything we can, and the prime minister intends to push for progress when he visits Egypt for COP27.”