Free Republic

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he will raise the case of Egyptian-British hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah with Egypt's leadership during the COP27 climate summit that opened on Sunday (Nov 6), the same day Abd el-Fattah said he would stop drinking water. Abd al-Fattah rose to prominence with Egypt's 2011 uprising but has been detained for most of the period since. Sentenced most recently in December 2021 to five years on charges of spreading false news, he has been on hunger strike for 219 days against his detention and prison conditions. In a letter dated Nov 5 to...

An Egyptian court sentenced former President Mohammed Morsi to three years in prison on Saturday during a court session broadcast on national television. The former Islamist president was sentenced, along with 19 others, for insulting the judiciary. The case involved 25 defendants including Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a prominent human rights activist, and Amr Hamzawy, a political commentator. Abdel-Fattah and Hamzawy were each fined 30,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,700/€1,400). Hamzawy is living in exile, but Abdel-Fattah is serving a five-year sentence for participating in an illegal demonstration in 2013. All the defendants are said to have insulted the judiciary with a variety...

A group of over 50 European Parliament members has nominated a controversial Egyptian activist for the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, despite his having advocated the assassination of Israelis and political leaders in Egypt and called for an end to the State of Israel. Alaa Abdel Fattah, 32, an Egyptian blogger and political activist, has been arrested numerous times by Egyptian authorities since the eruption of a popular revolution in the country in early 2011. Abdel Fattah, who boasts 626,000 followers on Twitter and 156,000 on Facebook, was released on bail September 15 after being charged with organizing...