Jailed activist Alaa Abdel Fattah begins

'water strike'
 Published

 2 hours ago

Image source, AFP

By Emily McGarvey
BBC News

Jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has stopped drinking water as he steps
up his hunger strike to coincide with the start of the COP27 summit, his sister has said.
Calls for his release escalated after the climate summit opened in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on
Sunday.

The 40 year old has consumed just 100 calories for more than 200 days to push Egypt to allow
him UK consular access.

UK PM Rishi Sunak has said he will raise the issue at the COP summit.

Abdel Fattah, a key activist in the 2011 Arab Spring, is currently serving a five-year sentence for
spreading false news.

His sister, Sanaa Seif, has warned that her brother's hunger and water strike may mean he could
die before the end of the summit.

Speaking to Sky News, she urged the British government to be "responsible for getting us proof
of life".

Mr Sunak wrote to Abdel Fattah's family and said he would raise his imprisonment with the
Egyptian government and reply again by the end of the summit.

He said the activist's case is "a priority for the British government both as a human rights
defender and as a British national".

Ms Seif, a 28-year-old human rights activist who has served three prison sentences in Egypt
herself on charges that fellow activists condemned as bogus, has been protesting outside the
Foreign Office in London along with family members for her brother's release.

She expressed concerns that Downing Street's engagement with the Egyptian president Abdel
Fattah El-Sisi would come too late.

Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said Abdel Fattah "must be released"
and warned that he may only have 72 hours to live.

"Let's be very clear, we're running out of time," she said in Cairo on Sunday. "So if the
authorities do not want to end up with a death they should have and could have prevented, they
must act now.

"If they don't, that death will be in every single discussion in this COP."