His relatives fear that he is “force-fed”. Concern is growing over the fate of the Egyptian-British political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah, in danger of death after seven months of hunger strike. The prison authority announced to his mother Laila Soueif, Thursday, November 10, that her son, who no longer drinks since the opening of COP27 in Egypt on November 6, was now “under medical treatment”. For its part, the Egyptian prosecutor’s office affirmed that “all vital signs” of the detainee “are normal” and that he is “in good health”.
For Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the country’s largest human rights NGO, “that means he’s being force-fed”. The mother of the detainee had presented himself for the fourth time this week in front of the prison of Wadi Natrun, 100 kilometers northwest of Cairo, without being able to see him. “We need our mother to see him, or a representative from the British Embassy so that we can know what state of health he really is”alarmed Mona Seif.
Because for lack of news, the family is worried: has Alaa been transferred to another prison, to the prison hospital or is he simply no longer in a condition to be seen? between the activist and his defense dates back to March 2020, according to Mona Seif, his sister. The family saw hope when in the morning, the prosecution summoned Khaled Ali, a great figure on the left and lawyer for Alaa Abdel Fattah, to issue him a visit permit. But “for the second time, the Ministry of the Interior refused a visit permit issued by the courts”he wrote on Facebook.
“The Egyptian authorities who imprisoned Alaa Abdel Fattah for a simple Facebook post also want to impose cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment on him, and force him to undergo medical measures against his will”, reacted Adam Coogle, of the NGO Human Rights Watch, in a press release. The mobilization grows as his defenders give him only a few days to live, unless he is force-fed, which is considered by international law as “torture” and even a “crime against humanity”.
The question of prisoners in Egypt, 135th out of 140 countries in the world ranking of the rule of law of the World Justice Project, is now unavoidable at COP27. Several Western leaders have called for the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.