Da’am Party calls on Egypt to release Alaa Abd el-Fattah and all political prisoners

Free Alaa Abd el-Fattah from Egyptian prison: symbol of the 2011 youth revolution, he has been on a hunger strike for 200 days.

COP27 climate change conference: The struggle against climate change cannot be separated from the struggle for human rights.

Protest vigil at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv | Thursday November 10, 5:00 p.m

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COP27, the global climate summit, opened on November 6 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where Egyptian President el-Sisi is hosting over 100 heads of state. While world leaders are coming to Egypt to discuss the planet’s future, tens of thousands of political activists are languishing in Egyptian prisons.

The most prominent of them, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, expanded his hunger strike on COP27’s opening day and is now also refraining from water. There is a danger that within a few days this will lead to his death, since for more than 200 days he has been on a partial hunger strike (consuming only 100 calories a day), which has greatly weakened his body.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah was one of the most prominent activists in the 2011 Arab Spring. Since then he has been imprisoned repeatedly, continuing his activism in the intervals and publishing a book of articles in English. In 2019 he was released after serving five years for participating in a non-violent demonstration in Cairo. Within a few months he was again arrested and tried a second time in a military court, this time together with his lawyer, Muhammad Albaker, and activist Mohamed (Oxygen) Ibrahim. Alaa was sentenced to 5 years in prison and his two friends to 4 years. The charge: publishing false information on the Internet.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah has British as well as Egyptian citizenship. Despite this, Wadi Natrun prison authorities prevent him from receiving a visit from British Embassy representatives. In addition, and contrary to Egyptian law, the authorities deny him access to newspapers, books and radio.

A large-scale international public campaign has been going on for the past few months, in parallel to the hunger strike started by Alaa in April. Alaa’s mother and sisters, who are also central activists in Egypt’s democratic movement, are leading the call to release him from prison. Pressure is also being directed at the British government.

Public pressure has intensified ahead of the climate summit. Prominent personalities, including dozens of Nobel laureates for literature and science, as well as environmental and human rights organizations, called on the Egyptian regime to release Alaa and his friends ahead of the conference. These calls emphasize the fact that the struggles against climate change and for human rights cannot be separated, and that it is unfitting for the climate conference to be held on Egyptian soil while the country’s authorities are brutalizing a freedom fighter like Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

Khalid Abdalla, an Egyptian-British film actor who is active in the campaign to free Alaa, explained in an interview with the Sky News on November 5: “We are very concerned about the future of the earth and humanity in light of the climate crisis, but if all the heads of state cannot guarantee justice for Alaa Abd el-Fattah and the Egyptian prisoners of conscience, how will they manage to save  humanity?”

For more details and media interviews, contact Yoav Gal Tamir, spokesperson of the Daam Party: +972-50-7859475

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