Jailed Egypt activist becomes UK citizen in push for freedom

The 40-year-old activist spent most of the past decade behind bars

Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah at his home in Cairo in May 2019. AFP

A leading Egyptian pro-democracy activist who has been imprisoned for more than three and a half years has obtained a British passport, his family announced on Monday.

The move is probably meant to pressure Egyptian authorities to release him.

Alaa Abdel Fattah, an outspoken dissident, rose to prominence with the 2011 uprisings that swept the Middle East and in Egypt toppled long-time President Hosni Mubarak.

Abdel Fattah, 40, spent most of the past decade behind bars. He was first sentenced in 2014 after being convicted of taking part in an unauthorised protest and assaulting a police officer.

He was released in 2019 after serving a five-year term but was rearrested later that year after anti-government protests.

In December, Mr Abdel Fattah was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of spreading false news.

He also faces charges of misusing social medial and joining a terrorist group — a reference to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which authorities declared a terrorist organisation in 2013.

Last year, Mr Abdel Fattah’s family and his Egyptian lawyers accused prison authorities in Cairo’s Tora Prison of denying him basic legal rights.

They called for prosecutors to investigate the claims.

Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah at a conference at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, in 2014. AP

Mr Abdel Fattah’s family said on Monday that he gained British citizenship through his mother, Laila Soueif, a maths professor at Cairo University who was born in London.

They requested that he be allowed to communicate with the family lawyers in the UK and that he be allowed British consular visits in prison.

Mr Abdel Fattah began a hunger strike this month in protest against his treatment and that of others at the prison, his family said.

“This is a British citizen detained unlawfully, in appalling conditions, simply for exercising his basic rights to peaceful expression and association,” said Daniel Furner, one of the family lawyers.

The UK Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A handful of activists with dual nationality were forced to relinquish their Egyptian citizenship in recent years as a condition for their release, allowing authorities to deport foreigners accused of crimes.

The government of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is a US ally with deep economic ties to European countries.

Mr Abdel Fattah has been detained several times before under different governments. An influential blogger, he hails from a family of political activists, lawyers and writers.

His late father was one of Egypt’s most tireless rights lawyers.

His sisters, also British citizens, are political activists and his aunt is the award-winning novelist Ahdaf Soueif.