SHARM EL SHEIKH (HRNW) – International pressure mounted Tuesday for the “immediate release” of Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, whose family fears for his life after he escalated his hunger strike by refusing water too as COP27 opened.
After a seven-month stint during which he consumed only “100 calories a day”, the 40-year-old British-Egyptian stopped drinking water on Sunday as world leaders gathered for the opening of the global climate summit in Egypt.
On Tuesday, a day after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron met with Egypt s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and raised his plight, UN rights chief Volker Turk and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz demanded his release.
Abdel Fattah, currently serving a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” for reposting a Facebook post about police brutality, has been leading headlines during the UN summit, intensifying international attention on Egypt s rights record.
A key figure of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah gained British citizenship this year through his UK-born mother, Laila Soueif.