- Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British-Egyptian democracy activist, has ended his hunger strike.
- His family was able to visit him for the first time in a month.
- He is serving a sentence of five years in prison for allegedly “spreading fake news”.
For the first time in a month, Alaa Abdel Fattah’s family was able to pay him a visit in prison in Egypt. Abdel Fattah is a British-Egyptian democracy activist who has been imprisoned in Egypt.
According to his sister, Mona Seif, his health has “severely worsened” as a direct result of the hunger strike he began two weeks ago and continued until Monday, when he finally decided to cease it.
“But at least they [their mother and sister] got to see him, and he needed to see the family so much,” she added.
Ms. Seif said the family would “share the full details” later on Thursday.
The most well-known political prisoner in Egypt, Abdel Fattah, is now serving a sentence of five years in prison for allegedly “spreading fake news” in a post that he made on social media.
In April, he started a partial hunger strike in protest over his conditions and the Egyptian authorities’ unwillingness to enable British diplomats to have access to consular services. He would only consume a maximum of 100 calories per day during this time.
The last time his family visited him in prison was on October 24, exactly one week before he made the decision to quit eating completely. In addition, he began withholding water on November 6, which was timed to coincide with the beginning of the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. He did this in the hopes of increasing the pressure on the Egyptian government.
His mother, Laila Soueif, was informed by officials from the correctional facility on Thursday of the previous week that he had undergone an unnamed “medical intervention.”
This week, he wrote her letters dated Saturday and Monday in which he informed her that he had first began drinking water and then finished his hunger strike. The letters were dated this week.
