CAIRO — Three Egyptian journalists said
Monday they had begun hunger strikes to demand authorities free Alaa Abdel
Fattah, a jailed political dissident who has been refusing food and now water
too.
اضافة اعلان
British-Egyptian
Abdel Fattah, 40, a major figure in
the 2011 revolt that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak, stopped drinking
water on Sunday to coincide with the opening of the COP27 climate summit in
Egypt.
“We have stopped eating now because Alaa Abdel
Fattah is in danger of dying,” journalist Mona Selim told AFP during a sit-in
at the journalists’ union in Cairo.
She was speaking alongside Eman Ouf and Racha Azab,
the two colleagues who have gone on hunger strike with her.
Selim said that the three are also demanding the
“liberation of all prisoners of conscience” in Egypt.
They number more than 60,000 in Egypt, according to
rights groups.
After a seven-month hunger strike during which he
consumed only “100 calories a day”, Alaa Abdel Fattah has refused food
altogether since last Tuesday.
On Sunday, he launched a “water strike” too, said
his sister Sanaa Seif, who on Monday traveled to Sharm El-Sheikh where world
leaders arrived for the COP27.
‘Not a lot of time’
British Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak has said Abdel Fattah’s plight is “a priority”, and in a letter to the
activist’s sister, strongly suggested that his case will be discussed at the
summit.
Activists at COP27 have posted prolifically on
Twitter under the hashtag #FreeAlaa, and several speakers have ended their
speeches with the words “you have not yet been defeated” — the title of his
book, prefaced by Canadian author Naomi Klein.
“There is not a
lot of time — 72 hours at best,” Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard
said in Cairo on Sunday, referring to Alaa Abdel Fattah’s possible remaining lifespan.
She urged Egypt to release him and said that, “if
they don’t, that death will be in every single discussion in this COP”.
Abdel Fattah has, since late last year, been serving
a five-year sentence for “broadcasting false news”, having already spent much
of the past decade behind bars.
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