In April, Alaa Abdel Fattah begins a hunger strike in an Egyptian prison, and in the end he even refuses to drink water. Now the family has given the all-clear: The 40-year-old is receiving medical care. Several heads of government have been demanding the release of the activist for days.
According to his family, Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah is alive and receiving medical treatment. The 40-year-old British-Egyptian dissident, who went on a hunger strike in prison about seven months ago, is “under medical treatment,” his sister Mona Seif said on Twitter. This is done “with the knowledge” of the judiciary.
Mona Seif explained that her mother Leila Sueif was informed of this by the prison authorities when she was again waiting for news about her son’s condition in front of the Wadi al-Natrun prison about a hundred kilometers north-west of Cairo. “Surely our mother should see him or someone from the British embassy in Cairo so we can find out about his true state of health!” the nurse demanded.
On Wednesday, the family reported rumors that Abdel Fattah was being force-fed. In addition, Mona Seif had announced that the prison authorities had not received a letter from her mother to Alaa, thereby increasing the uncertainty about his fate: “Does that mean that he is in a state where he cannot receive a letter? Or that he’s not in this prison anymore?”
Abdel Fattah went on a hunger strike about seven months ago: since April 2, he has only had a glass of tea with a spoonful of honey a day. A week ago, according to his family, he stopped consuming calories completely and had started not even drinking water since the start of the UN climate conference on Sunday.
Great Britain, France, UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz have called for the democracy activist’s release in the past few days. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Schukri, who is also President of the current UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, has repeatedly assured in the past few days that Abdel Fattah is receiving “every necessary care”. In view of the world climate conference in Egypt, the Abdel Fattah case is receiving a great deal of attention. On Thursday, conference participants were asked to dress in white in solidarity with the activist.
