British-Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El Fattah Returns to UK Amid Controversy Over Past Posts
Alaa Abd El Fattah, a British-Egyptian activist, returned to the UK on Friday to reunite with his family after being released from an Egyptian jail where he spent more than a decade in custody. Human rights groups have criticized his detention as unfair. Abd El Fattah arrived in the UK with his 14-year-old son Khaled.
UK Prime Minister welcomed Abd El Fattah's return on the social media platform X. However, this was followed by criticism when old posts resurfaced calling for the killing of Zionists and police officers. Labour leader Keir Starmer stated he was unaware of these posts. In response, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper asked a senior civil servant to investigate why ministers, both current and previous, were not informed of Abd El Fattah's past comments.
Abd El Fattah issued an apology for the posts, describing them as expressions of a young man's anger. The Prime Minister's spokesman welcomed the apology as fairly fulsome. BBC News reported that Abd El Fattah's Facebook account had liked posts framing criticism against him as a 'smear campaign' orchestrated by the richest man in the world, Middle East intelligence services, and Zionist organizations. Another liked post suggested he was a victim of a Zionist-led campaign. The original controversial posts were later removed.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick argued that these posts indicated the apology was insincere and claimed Abd El Fattah remained a threat. He suggested that the threshold for revoking citizenship might be met. Abd El Fattah was granted British citizenship in December 2021 through his London-born mother. Conservative and Reform UK parties have called for him to be stripped of his citizenship and deported. Although the Home Secretary has such powers, a high threshold must be met, which Downing Street maintains has not been reached, and any decision would face legal challenges.
Abd El Fattah rose to prominence during the 2011 uprising and in 2021 was convicted of spreading fake news for a Facebook post about torture, a trial condemned by human rights organizations. Notably, he was withdrawn as a nominee for a human rights prize a decade ago due to comments about Israel posted in 2012.
