CAIRO —
Jailed British-Egyptian activist
Alaa Abdel Fattah has ended a months long
hunger strike, his family said Tuesday, after fears for his health grew and
amid criticism of Cairo during the ongoing COP27 climate summit.
اضافة اعلان
Abdel Fattah, who
consumed “only 100 calories a day” for seven months, escalated his strike,
first to all food, then water as the COP27 climate summit opened on November 6
in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
“I have ended the
strike,” the activist wrote in the letter handed to his family on Tuesday, but
dated the day before, shared by his sister Mona Seif.
Abdel Fattah, 40,
wrote to his mother, “I want to celebrate my birthday with you on Thursday.”
In what was the
second letter from the dissident received by his family in two days, Abdel
Fattah asked his mother to “bring a cake” to her monthly visit to the Wadi
Al-Natroun prison, about 100km northwest of the capital Cairo.
“I’ll see you on
the visit day and tell you everything then, and we’ll get back to long letters
after the visit.”
His sister, who
has been campaigning for his freedom for years, said she welcomed the news with
“cautious relief”.
“My heart won’t
really be settled until Thursday when my mother and sister see him with their
own eyes.”
Abdel Fattah has
been leading headlines since
UN climate talks began last week in Egypt, which
sought to burnish its image by hosting COP27 but has come under fire over its
human rights record.
Rights groups
estimate Cairo is holding some 60,000 political prisoners, many of them in
brutal conditions and overcrowded cells.
International pressure
A key figure in the 2011
uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah has spent
much of the past decade since behind bars.
He is currently serving a five-year sentence for
“spreading false news” by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.
The hashtag #FreeAlaa has been a fixture of Egyptian
social media for years but was trending on Twitter for the first time in years
as world leaders began arriving in Sharm El-Sheikh last week.
Several raised the case in bilateral meetings with
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, notably US President Joe Biden on Friday.
Fears had mounted that prison authorities were
force-feeding Abdel Fattah, after his mother was notified he had been put
“under medical supervision”.
His other sister
Sanaa Seif was repeatedly heckled
by pro-government attendees as she campaigned for his release at COP27.
On Friday, Mona Seif said the family had submitted a
new request for a presidential pardon for Abdel Fattah.
That plea was picked up by one of Egypt’s most
watched talk show hosts, the ardently pro-Sisi Amr Adib.
On prime time television Friday, Adib said the
pardon would be in “the interest of Egypt first and foremost”.
After his family
announced the end of the strike Tuesday, Tarek El-Awady — a member of the
recently reactivated presidential pardoning committee — wrote on Twitter that
he “hopes the state will take the necessary measures to quickly pardon” Abdel
Fattah and other prisoners.
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