Empty Chair: ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH (EGYPT) - TLRC/PEN International 2025.05.29

 

 

Empty Chair: ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH (EGYPT) - TLRC/PEN International 2025.05.29


ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH (EGYPT)

Alaa Abd El-Fattah is a British-Egyptian citizen, an award-winning writer and software developer, and an Honorary Member of English PEN. He is the author of “You have not yet been defeated,” and is considered the most high-profile prisoner of conscience in Egypt, having spent more than two-thirds of the last decade in prison for his expression. He won the 2022 Electronic Frontier Foundation Award for Democratic Reform Advocacy and PEN Canada’s One Humanity Award in 2023.

In September 2024, Alaa Abd El-Fattah had fully served a five-year unjust prison sentence in Egypt following a grossly unfair trial before the Emergency State Security Court. However, Egyptian authorities continue to detain him arbitrarily. He faced trumped-up charges, including ‘joining an illegal organisation’, ‘spreading false news,’ and ‘misusing social media.’ The sentence, handed down in December 2021, has been widely condemned by leading international human rights organisations, including PEN International, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Human Rights Watch.

Abd El-Fattah has been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and held in deplorable prison conditions, as well as prohibited from accessing books and newspapers, which have all impacted his health. He is still denied access to a lawyer and a UK consular visit. In 2022, Abd El-Fattah underwent a lengthy hunger strike in protest at his conditions of detention and to call attention to the human rights situation in Egypt. His mother, prominent academic and human rights defender Laila Soueif, has started an open-ended hunger strike since 29 September 2024 to object to his arbitrary detention. Abd El-Fattah has also started a hunger strike since 1 March 2025 after his mother was admitted to the hospital in London, as her health has significantly deteriorated.

PEN International believe that Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s detention is arbitrary, in retaliation for his legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression, and remains gravely concerned over his health and continues to call for his immediate and unconditional release. 




 



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