Detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

I assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the word “you” will not pass my lips during this debate.

I have called this Adjournment debate to raise the urgent matter of the ongoing detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah. That name was raised in the earlier debate and I am grateful for the number of Members who highlighted the case, but this debate gives us the opportunity to go into his position in slightly more depth.

Alaa is a celebrated British-Egyptian writer and co-recipient of this year’s PEN Pinter prize, but he has spent the past decade imprisoned in Egypt. Alaa has been imprisoned for his writings on human rights and technology and in support of democracy. He is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, and over those 10 years, tragically, Alaa has been denied the right to be with his young son, who lives and attends school in Brighton. I welcome members of his family who are in the Gallery today.

Alaa’s current detention should have ended on 29 September, when his most recent five-year sentence ended. His appalling imprisonment was for the crime of “spreading false news”, because he shared a Facebook post detailing acts of torture against another inmate. The date of his sentences ended, but the Egyptian Government refused to release him, arguing that his two years spent languishing in pre-trial detention did not count towards his sentence. That is in complete violation of international legal norms, as well as Egypt’s own domestic law.

Let me briefly offer a list of who has called for Alaa’s release, because the scale of support for him internationally is extraordinary. Our last four UK Prime Ministers have demanded his release. Also on the list are the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the White House, the editorial boards of some of the most significant newspapers from across the globe, including The Guardian and The Washington Post, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and 14 Nobel laureates for literature—and that is just a few.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Ind)]

My right hon. Friend rightly lists figures of national and international significance who are backing the campaign for Alaa’s release. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in constituencies across the country—including my constituency in Leeds—more and more people, when they hear this heartbreaking story, are feeling that this is a huge injustice and that we want our Government to do everything they can and strain every sinew to get Alaa released and reunited with his family?

[John McDonnell]

Alaa’s case is becoming a cause célèbre, not just in this country but across the globe, as demonstrated by the number of significant figures and also by the number of constituents who are now contacting us about the case.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this forward. I have spoken to him. In today’s debate, which I hope the right hon. Member watched on TV, he would have seen the Minister come forward with some ideas on how to take this matter forward. It has been mentioned that Alaa Abd el-Fattah is a British citizen. Carrying a British passport has to mean more than just being a British citizen; it gives us rights. Where are those rights? Does the right hon. Member agree that his continued detention should raise red flags with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office? Further, does he not believe that this deserves a greater push for Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s release? I hope that the Minister’s reply will outline some of the things that I believe the Government will do in a positive fashion.

[John McDonnell]

I will come on to some of those issues later in my speech, but this was a running theme in the debate that took place earlier as well.

To follow on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said with regard to Alaa’s case and the show of support, last year, more than 100 Parliaments echoed the call for his release in a letter to the then Foreign Secretary. In this new Parliament, Alaa has found support across the Benches. Today’s debate on the protection of British nationals arbitrarily detained abroad has demonstrated the breadth of that support. We also have a new all-party parliamentary group taking up the case.

Following the decision by the Egyptian authorities to effectively ignore the end of Alaa’s sentence, his mother, Laila Soueif, a professor of mathematics at Cairo university, whom a number of hon. Members have met, resorted to the only method that she thought she had left—a hunger strike. Today is the 67th day of that hunger strike. Since 30 September, she has consumed no calories, surviving solely on salts, black coffee and herbal tea. She has lost 22% of her body weight, and, as anyone who has experience of hunger strikes knows—unfortunately, in this country, we have known them in the past—she is now entering an extremely urgent and dangerous phase. Laila, who was born in London, felt compelled to take this extreme action because she believed that she was not being listened to by either of her Governments—both in Egypt and, unfortunately, in the UK.

Alaa has been repeatedly targeted by the Egyptian Government. He was first arrested in 2006 for protesting for the independence of the judiciary. In October 2011, he was arrested after writing a newspaper article detailing the Egyptian military’s killing of mostly Egyptian Christian protesters, known in Egypt as the Maspero massacre. The original demonstration was against the demolition of a church.

In 2013, Alaa was arrested again, falsely accused of organising a protest in violation of Egypt’s draconian protest law. He was released from prison in March 2019 after serving his five-year sentence. But the terms of his release were draconian. He was required to sleep inside a police station every night, so from 6pm until 6am he was effectively imprisoned again. During this period, Alaa continued to document the ways in which prisoners were treated in Egyptian prisons, publishing articles in the online newspaper, Mada Masr. While sleeping in the police station, he was visited in the middle of the night by security agents who threatened him and told him to stop writing. He courageously refused to do so. Among the many things that he wrote and shared was a story on Facebook about a man who had died in prison, allegedly after being tortured.

After six months, Alaa was re-arrested. In September 2019, he was arrested while inside the police station where he was required to sleep and taken to an undisclosed state security facility. His lawyer, Mohamed el-Baqer, found him and was himself arrested while representing Alaa. The lawyer is now serving four years in prison.

Alaa was held in inhumane conditions at Tora prison. In a cell with no sunlight, he was denied access to books, exercise, a radio, a mattress or bedding, or any time out of his cell. He was not even allowed a clock to be aware of the time of the day, so days would pass without him realising. Worst of all, he was placed under the custody of the very same officer who was accused of torturing a man to death. Alaa was held in this nightmare of a place for two years. At that time, he told his family that he was having suicidal thoughts, which was understandable.

Then, in December 2021, his application for his British passport—his right under the British Nationality Act 1981 —came through. A one-time use emergency passport was handed to his family who then went to the prison. They were not allowed to take even letters to Alaa, and the family insisted that a blank postcard of the Queen be delivered to him. The prison guards, perhaps confused, took the postcard and gave it to Alaa. For months thereafter, that postcard of the Queen was the only thing in his cell. This was how his family finally let him know that he had become a British citizen. Alaa and his family thought that things would now change, but weeks passed and no consular official arrived. Requests by the British embassy for consular access to their citizen were denied. Desperate, in April 2022 Alaa declared himself on hunger strike until the Egyptian authorities would allow the British consular services to access him. That failed. To this day, he has still never received a consular visit.

Many of us will remember the scenes in the run-up to and during COP27, which was held in Egypt. With still no movement after months on a Gandhi-style strike of 100 calories a day, Alaa escalated to a full water strike. There were scenes of global solidarity with Alaa from those in the climate movement, Nobel laureates and world leaders, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron. Our former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote to Alaa’s family before travelling to—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman just referred to the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton by name. He really should know better than to do that.

[John McDonnell]

You got me on that one, Madam Deputy Speaker. Hands up. I will hand myself in later. Our former Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) wrote to Alaa’s family before travelling to Egypt. He said that

“the government is deeply committed to doing everything we can to resolve Alaa's case as soon as possible”.

Despite that commitment, two years on from COP, Alaa’s family have nothing to show for the UK Government’s efforts to secure his release. If this new arbitrary extension of Alaa’s sentence is allowed to pass without intervention from the British authorities, his family fear, as many of us do, that he will never be released. They have cause to believe that as the Egyptian Government have repeatedly engaged in a practice they call “case recycling”, which is when new cases are brought against prisoners approaching the end of their sentence. According to human rights organisations such as the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, in 2023 at least 251 defendants were rotated to new cases. In 2022, another 620 defendants were treated in the same way.

Alaa’s family began to lose faith in the previous Government, with Ministers seemingly unwilling to take any action on his case beyond simply raising it with their Egyptian counterparts. While that was going on, we witnessed the Government seeking ever-closer economic ties with the Egyptian Government. The election of a Labour Government gave Alaa’s family a renewed sense of hope. The Foreign Secretary has been a supporter of the campaign. He was alongside Alaa’s sisters during their sit-in outside the Foreign Office and publicly described Alaa as a

“courageous voice for democracy in Egypt”.

As shadow Foreign Secretary, he outlined a series of practical suggestions for getting Alaa back to the UK, which included leveraging our substantive trade relations with Egypt, restricting the access of the Egyptian ambassador and pausing new strategic partnerships with the Egyptian Government until Alaa’s case was resolved.

The only relevant detail that has changed since the Foreign Secretary made those remarks as shadow Foreign Secretary is that Alaa’s sentence has now ended, but he remains in prison. Like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I call upon the Foreign Secretary to stay true to his words and to see through some of the actions that he outlined in 2022. He knew then, as is evident, that a strategy based solely on raising the case in meetings will not secure Alaa’s release. Ahead of 29 September, when Alaa was supposed to be released, multiple Members of this House wrote to the Foreign Secretary, alerting him to the end of Alaa’s sentence and asking him to ensure that appropriate action was taken. Just days before the 29th, the Foreign Secretary was pictured smiling with his Egyptian counterpart. On 21 November, our Prime Minister was photographed shaking hands with President Sisi. On 25 November, I tabled a question on whether the Prime Minister had raised Alaa’s case with the President on that occasion. I have not yet received a response. To be brutally frank, it is not clear that any serious steps have been taken to alert the Egyptian Government to the fact that Britain was expecting Alaa to be released on that date. It is still unclear whether the Government have changed their approach to the case since the date passed—

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Jeff Smith.)

[John McDonnell]

We expected a significant change of approach from the last Government because the previous methods failed, so I would welcome an update from the Minister to the House on whether their approach has changed.

There are a series of steps the Government could take that would see Alaa reunited with his family, and especially with his son. The Minister should change the travel advice for Egypt on the Foreign Office’s website to reflect the reality of the moment: that if a person is arrested in Egypt, the Government cannot guarantee even consular access. The United States provides that advice to its citizens—why do we not? Last year saw a record number of British holidaymakers go to Egypt, a country where tourism is a significant part of the economy. Changing the travel advice to reflect the reality of the situation would demonstrate to the Egyptians that our Government are taking Alaa’s detention seriously. We know the Egyptian Government are seeking an increase in British investment into Egypt. We should be clear and announce a moratorium on any new trade agreements with Egypt until Alaa is free.

Last month, 15 non-governmental organisations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, FairSquare and the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign asked the British Government to put on hold any new Government assistance or promotion of new foreign direct investments into Egypt until Alaa was free. In recent days, we have also seen new research from the Campaign Against Arms Trade, exposing the fact that Britain has sold more than £200 million of arms licences to Egypt while Alaa remains in prison. That included the largest ever single arms licence on record from Britain to Egypt, worth nearly £80 million, for military radars in December 2023. That is further evidence of the depth of the relationship between the UK and Egypt that can and should be leveraged. It goes without saying that no such deals of that kind must be pursued by the new Government while a British citizen is imprisoned.

As the Foreign Secretary previously suggested, there should be diplomatic consequences for the Egyptian ambassador. How is it right that he continues to be allowed access to the highest levels of our Government while refusing to allow British officials in Cairo to do their job under the Vienna convention on consular relations? I wrote to the Egyptian ambassador—I hope he received my email—in the hope that we would receive some positive message from him before the debate, and we could break the good news that the Egyptian Government had decided to release Alaa. I have received no response whatsoever.

I have outlined some of the measures that the Government could take to make it clear to Egypt that the refusal to recognise Alaa’s British nationality and the failure to recognise and respect its own laws on time served will have serious consequences for the bilateral relationship. I hope the Government will grasp the urgency and seriousness of the situation, especially in the context of a 68-year-old woman on hunger strike whose life is at risk, and take the action necessary to see Alaa released hopefully in time to spend Christmas with his son in Brighton.

I would like to end by sending a message from this House to Alaa, echoing his own words back to him from the title of his book: “You have not yet been defeated”. I say to Alaa: you have not been, and we will not let you be, defeated. We will secure your release.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Hamish Falconer)]

I acknowledge Alaa’s family, who are in the Public Gallery. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for securing this debate, and I pay tribute to him for his tireless support for Mr el-Fattah and his family. I am also grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions in this and the earlier debate.

I re-emphasise, both to Alaa’s family and to the House, that his release remains a priority for the UK Government. I recognise the profound impact that his imprisonment has had on him and his family. The Government, and I as the Minister responsible, are doing all we can to find a resolution. Our priority remains to reunite him with his family, and until that happens, we are working to ensure that he is allowed consular access and support. As I said earlier, supporting British nationals overseas is at the heart of our work at the Foreign Office. That includes dual nationals and more recent British nationals such as Alaa.

I have met Mr el-Fattah’s family on a number of occasions, including his incredibly impressive mother, Laila, who was in the Chamber last week and whom I also saw in Cairo. I share my the concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington about her wellbeing, as she is deep into a hunger strike. As he rightly said, the health implications of that are obviously serious. I am sure that the whole House shares the Government’s concern about her welfare. We will continue to be in regular contact with Mr el-Fattah’s family to discuss his case. The Foreign Secretary recently met the family, including Laila, last week. I met her last month during my visit to Cairo and when she was in the House more recently.

Our consular officials and our ambassador in Cairo work around the clock on this case. At the same time, we know from listening to the family that they feel that more support is required. That feeling is shared in other cases, and as I said to the House earlier, that is why we are looking to strengthen our approach through the appointment of a special envoy to work with families on the most complex detention cases, of which Mr el-Fattah’s case is clearly one.

Let me turn to the question of Mr el-Fattah’s nationality, which is contested. The UK has consistently and unambiguously maintained that he is a British national, and that remains the position of the new Labour Government. He became a British citizen in December 2021, while he was in detention but shortly before being sentenced. I stress that the timing of his citizenship, in the same month as his sentencing, was in no way connected to the UK Government’s position on his case. As the Foreign Secretary said in the House last week, there is no conspiracy behind this. We have always been clear with Egypt that Mr el-Fattah was granted nationality in the normal way. He is a British national, and is therefore entitled to consular access under the Vienna convention. We disagree with the Egyptian view that he is an Egyptian mono-national and that the process for conferring nationality was in any way irregular. We continue to urge the Egyptians to grant us consular access under the Vienna convention on consular relations, as they have done in other cases of detained dual nationals.

In response to my right hon. Friend’s comments, let me say a little about how we have been engaging with Egypt. Across all our engagements, we have been clear that this case will be resolved only by Mr el-Fattah’s release. That was the message that I delivered when I saw Foreign Minister Abdelatty and the Egyptian ambassador on what was the first visit by a Minister of the new Government to Egypt. The Foreign Secretary has also raised this case directly with the Foreign Minister, as has the Minister for Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), just this week. I can also confirm to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington that the Prime Minister did discuss the case with President Sisi in August. I would like to reassure Alaa’s family and this House that we will continue to press the Egyptians until Mr el-Fattah is free and reunited with his family.

I am aware, of course, of the understandable frustration that Members feel at Alaa’s situation, and the desire that the UK Government roll back our relationship with Egypt or drop all economic support. However, our partnership with Egypt is crucial to alleviating suffering in the region and for our push for wider peace and security in the region. While I was in Egypt, I announced further assistance for the Egyptian healthcare system in order to support Palestinians who have crossed from Gaza and are in need of urgent medical care. I also signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at boosting the Egyptians’ efforts on food security.

I know that my right hon. Friend and many other Members of the House are aware of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and the many pressures on Egypt, where poverty is also very high. As such, while Mr el-Fattah remains at the forefront of my mind, the Foreign Secretary’s mind and the minds of the whole Government, we will continue to try to ensure that our relationship with Egypt is positive and productive where those efforts are necessary to protect other British nationals and try to deal with questions of international peace and security.

[John McDonnell]

I want to make it explicit that nobody who has raised this case wants to prevent the UK Government from providing aid and assistance, particularly given the issues that are happening to the Palestinians in Gaza—we are certainly not asking for that. What we are asking for relates to the relationship on trade and on arms sales. I believe there is potential leverage in those areas to enable us to secure Alaa’s release. In addition, the relationship with the Egyptian ambassador also gives us the opportunity to exercise some leverage. Those are the activities that we would like the Government to pursue.

[Hamish Falconer]

I will come back to those points in a little while, if I may.

At the heart of our general approach is the firm belief that through continued engagement, we can encourage the Egyptians to improve their human rights record, and that a stronger relationship than the one we inherited would allow us to have frank and open discussions with key decision makers—as my colleagues and I have recently done—so that we can see improvements, both in Alaa’s case and in relation to the wider human rights and social situation in Egypt. I reassure my right hon. Friend that in my engagements with both the Egyptian ambassador and Egyptian Ministers, we are clear at all times about the importance of this case, including its importance to the very many international observers whom my right hon. Friend ran through so articulately. This case is important to Egypt’s international reputation, and it will of course shape the views of investors and others when they think about their engagements.

In conclusion, the UK remains firmly committed to securing Mr el-Fattah’s release and reuniting him with his family. We will continue to push Egypt towards a resolution, making clear that the only way to resolve this case is by releasing him.

[John McDonnell]

The Minister is coming to a conclusion. Can we have an assurance that we will receive a report to the House in the coming month about the effectiveness of the actions the Government have taken in securing Alaa’s release?

[Hamish Falconer]

Having been pressed on this case twice in a day, I am more than happy to commit to return to the House within a month to give a further update.

We will continue to push Egypt for a resolution and I thank my right hon. Friend for his interest in the case, and many others in this House for their interest. I have no doubt that I will be regularly coming to the House to update Members on our efforts in relation to Mr el-Fattah, and I know that the whole House is thinking of his mother and the rest of his family during this incredibly difficult time.

Question put and agreed to.