The attacks and restrictions against the Palestinian journalists are part of a broader pattern of obstruction and hostility toward the press in Israel. For more than 20 months, Israeli authorities have barred foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip and, as of June 17, have killed 185 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including at least 17 who were targeted for their work.

CPJ has documented at least eight separate incidents on June 14 and 15 involving the harassment, obstruction, equipment confiscation, incitement, and, in some cases, forced removal by Israeli police, of at least 14 journalists. Most of the journalists work for Arabic-language outlets and were reporting from sites impacted by Iranian or Israeli strikes. Despite their press credentials and lawful access, journalists were repeatedly blocked from entering sites, assaulted by civilians, and in several cases expelled from reporting sites by police or border guard forces.

“We are deeply concerned by the troubling pattern of targeting Palestinian journalists working inside Israel. On June 14 and June 15, at least 14 journalists were obstructed, incited against, or physically assaulted for simply doing their jobs,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Israeli authorities must immediately investigate these violations, hold perpetrators accountable, and stop treating Palestinian journalists covering the war as threats.”

Physical attacks:

On June 14, police in Rishon LeZion prevented Sameer Abdel Hadi, a correspondent for Turkish news agency Anadolu, and Arej Hakroush, a correspondent for privately owned, London-based online news channel Al-Ghad TV, from returning to reporting sites they had legally entered and confiscated their equipment. Before police forcibly expelled them from the street where they were broadcasting, unidentified individuals called Hakroush and her camera operator, Alaa Al-Heeh, racial slurs and physically attacked them while police refused to intervene, according to Abdel Hadi and Hakroush, who spoke with CPJ. The individuals beat the journalists with their equipment and pulled Hakroush by the hair.

On June 15, in Bat Yam, Al-Ghad TV correspondent Razi Tattour and camera operator Eyad Abu Shalbak were pushed and harassed by border police officers after speaking Arabic at the site of a rocket strike. The officers forcibly cut their live transmission, confiscated their camera, and accused them of being “terrorists,” Tattour told CPJ. The camera was later returned, and Tattour filed a police complaint.

Separately that day in Bat Yam, journalists Marwan Othmanah and Mohamed Al-Sharif of Saudi broadcaster Al-Arabiya were targeted by a group of unidentified individuals, who shouted, “Get out Arabs!” and threw objects at them, injuring Othmanah in the thigh. Police did not make any arrests or protect the journalists, Othmanah told CPJ.

Incitement and threats on social media:

On June 15, in Haifa, several journalists — including Abdel Hadi of Turkish-based Anadolu; freelancers Ward Qarara and Kareen Al-Bash; reporters Saeed Khair El-Din, Israa Al-Zeer, and Abd Khader of Al-Arabiya; and Ahmed Jaradat, a reporter for independent regional broadcaster Al-Araby TV — were filming a segment on the aftermath of rocket strikes when unidentified individuals began filming them and circulating their images in posts in Israeli social media groups, accusing all them of working for “the enemy,” according to Qarara and CPJ’s review of those posts. Police were present at the scene but did not intervene or offer protection to the journalists, he told CPJ.

Censorship:

On June 14, the Israeli military censor instructed local and international media not to publish details about rocket strikes or internal security. A Fox News reporter, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said they were banned from entering a reporting site after they were accused of violating the instructions.

Additionally, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced that he had asked Israel’s General Security Services, also known as Shin Bet, to investigate foreign media broadcasters over claims they were “giving information to the enemy.”

CPJ emailed the Israeli Defense Forces’ North America Media Deskto ask about these actions against journalists but did not immediately receive a response.

Editor’s note: The fifth paragraph was updated to include the equipment confiscation.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program.

The attacks and restrictions against the Palestinian journalists are part of a broader pattern of obstruction and hostility toward the press in Israel. For more than 20 months, Israeli authorities have barred foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip and, as of June 17, have killed 185 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including at least 17 who were targeted for their work.

CPJ has documented at least eight separate incidents on June 14 and 15 involving the harassment, obstruction, equipment confiscation, incitement, and, in some cases, forced removal by Israeli police, of at least 14 journalists. Most of the journalists work for Arabic-language outlets and were reporting from sites impacted by Iranian or Israeli strikes. Despite their press credentials and lawful access, journalists were repeatedly blocked from entering sites, assaulted by civilians, and in several cases expelled from reporting sites by police or border guard forces.

“We are deeply concerned by the troubling pattern of targeting Palestinian journalists working inside Israel. On June 14 and June 15, at least 14 journalists were obstructed, incited against, or physically assaulted for simply doing their jobs,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Israeli authorities must immediately investigate these violations, hold perpetrators accountable, and stop treating Palestinian journalists covering the war as threats.”

Physical attacks:

On June 14, police in Rishon LeZion prevented Sameer Abdel Hadi, a correspondent for Turkish news agency Anadolu, and Arej Hakroush, a correspondent for privately owned, London-based online news channel Al-Ghad TV, from returning to reporting sites they had legally entered and confiscated their equipment. Before police forcibly expelled them from the street where they were broadcasting, unidentified individuals called Hakroush and her camera operator, Alaa Al-Heeh, racial slurs and physically attacked them while police refused to intervene, according to Abdel Hadi and Hakroush, who spoke with CPJ. The individuals beat the journalists with their equipment and pulled Hakroush by the hair.

On June 15, in Bat Yam, Al-Ghad TV correspondent Razi Tattour and camera operator Eyad Abu Shalbak were pushed and harassed by border police officers after speaking Arabic at the site of a rocket strike. The officers forcibly cut their live transmission, confiscated their camera, and accused them of being “terrorists,” Tattour told CPJ. The camera was later returned, and Tattour filed a police complaint.

Separately that day in Bat Yam, journalists Marwan Othmanah and Mohamed Al-Sharif of Saudi broadcaster Al-Arabiya were targeted by a group of unidentified individuals, who shouted, “Get out Arabs!” and threw objects at them, injuring Othmanah in the thigh. Police did not make any arrests or protect the journalists, Othmanah told CPJ.

Incitement and threats on social media:

On June 15, in Haifa, several journalists — including Abdel Hadi of Turkish-based Anadolu; freelancers Ward Qarara and Kareen Al-Bash; reporters Saeed Khair El-Din, Israa Al-Zeer, and Abd Khader of Al-Arabiya; and Ahmed Jaradat, a reporter for independent regional broadcaster Al-Araby TV — were filming a segment on the aftermath of rocket strikes when unidentified individuals began filming them and circulating their images in posts in Israeli social media groups, accusing all them of working for “the enemy,” according to Qarara and CPJ’s review of those posts. Police were present at the scene but did not intervene or offer protection to the journalists, he told CPJ.

Censorship:

On June 14, the Israeli military censor instructed local and international media not to publish details about rocket strikes or internal security. A Fox News reporter, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said they were banned from entering a reporting site after they were accused of violating the instructions.

Additionally, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced that he had asked Israel’s General Security Services, also known as Shin Bet, to investigate foreign media broadcasters over claims they were “giving information to the enemy.”

CPJ emailed the Israeli Defense Forces’ North America Media Deskto ask about these actions against journalists but did not immediately receive a response.

Editor’s note: The fifth paragraph was updated to include the equipment confiscation.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program.

Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade in prison and now faces an additional two years of detention—despite Egyptian legal provisions that should have guaranteed his release last September. On May 20, the journalist’s 69-year-old mother, Laila Soueif, resumed a near-total hunger strike in protest.

On March 4, CPJ led a joint letter signed by 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel laureates, writers, and public figures, urging President el-Sisi to issue a presidential pardon for Abdelfattah.

Read the full letter in English here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The letter highlights the urgency of Abdelfattah’s case as he began a hunger strike in prison on March 1, 2025. His 69-year-old mother, Laila Soueif—a respected Egyptian professor—conducted a hunger strike for more than 150 days, which led to severe health deterioration and hospitalization. 

On March 4, CPJ led another joint letter, signed by 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel Prize laureates, writers, and public figures, calling on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to grant a presidential pardon to Abd El Fattah.

Read the full letter in here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The letter, sent Tuesday, highlights that Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade behind bars and now faces an additional two years in detention — despite provisions in Egyptian law that should have secured his release last September. His continued imprisonment has not only defied the expectations of his family and human rights organizations but also violates Egyptian law, given the time he has already spent in pretrial detention.

The signatories urge el-Sisi to reunite Abdelfattah with his family, particularly as his mother, Professor Laila Soueif — a respected 69-year-old Egyptian academic — has endured over 150 days of hunger strike in protest of her son’s unjust continued detention. Her health has now severely deteriorated, leading to hospitalization. Doctors have warned that she faces an “immediate risk of sudden death” if she continues fasting.

Read the full letter in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The letter raised concerns over Egypt’s worsening human rights situation, where authorities continue to suppress dissent, restrict civil society, and arbitrarily arrest thousands, including journalists. The letter highlighted Egyptian-British blogger Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has still not been released, even after completing his unjust five-year prison sentence in September 2024.

The signatories emphasized that a U.K.-led joint statement would send a strong message to Egyptian authorities about the urgency of Alaa’s release and the broader need to address Egypt’s deepening repression.

Read the full letter in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

We discuss the cases of two of Egypt’s most prominent political activists, Hossam Bahgat and Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who have both been persecuted by the Egyptian government for exposing its human rights abuses. Bahgat is facing a new round of harassment from Egyptian security forces, while El-Fattah remains in prison past his expected release. El-Fattah’s mother, the Cairo University professor Laila Soueif, has been on hunger strike for nearly four months in the U.K., where both she and her son have dual citizenship, demanding that the British government pressure Egypt for El-Fattah’s freedom. “Her collapse is imminent. She’s probably going to be hospitalized soon,” says journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who recently spoke to Soueif’s family.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The prominent British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah remains imprisoned in Cairo even after he completed his five-year sentence last September. Fattah came to prominence during the Egyptian revolution as a blogger and political activist, and he has been jailed multiple times by the authoritarian government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for his advocacy. His family and supporters continue to demand his freedom and have pressed the U.K. government to pressure Egypt into releasing him. Fattah’s mother Laila Soueif is now on her 117th day on hunger strike, standing on Downing Street for at least an hour every workday until her son is released. Now Australian journalist Peter Greste has launched his own hunger strike to pressure the British government, saying he owes his life to the Egyptian activist, who helped him survive when he was imprisoned in Egypt in 2013. “I quite literally owe Alaa my life,” says Greste. “He is the most popular, the most recognized political prisoner in the system, and I think they fear his capacity to mobilize people. They fear his capacity to inspire.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The appeal, submitted by Abdelfattah and his family, was supported by a letter from CPJ and other organizations on November 23. It called on the UNWGAD to review his case and issue a formal opinion on whether his detention is arbitrary and violates international law.

Abdelfattah was first arrested in September 2019 during a crackdown on protests demanding President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s resignation. He was later sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news and anti-state activities. Although Abdelfattah was scheduled for release in September 2024, Egyptian authorities unlawfully extended his detention until January 2027, in violation of Articles 482 and 484 of Egypt’s Criminal Procedure Law.

CPJ has previously called on the Egyptian government to release Abdelfattah, drop all remaining charges, and stop abusing legal provisions to unjustly prolong his imprisonment. Additionally, CPJ joined others in urging U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy to suspend all economic and financial partnerships with Egypt until the country frees Abdelfattah.

Read the full letter in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Israel has stepped up systematic attack on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign. Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north. There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began.

Getting information about the impact of the war on journalists – and therefore a clear picture of the impact of the war itself – was already challenging when CPJ issued a report in May on the challenges of verification. Journalists interviewed by CPJ in late October and early November told CPJ that the continued attacks on the media – along with the food shortages, continual displacement, and communications blackouts experienced by all Gazans – placed severe constraints on coverage of the impact of Israel’s northern Gaza military offensive. The offensive began on October 5 by targeting the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp before spreading to all of northern Gaza in what the Israeli military said was a bid to stop militant Hamas fighters from regrouping.

 “Israel is accused of adopting a ‘starve or leave’ policy to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza. It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them, the world won’t be able to write history.”

Reports from the area say that the IDF burned schools, attacked hospitals and medical staff, and detained and abused men. Scores of people have been killed, tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee, and families separated as the attack continues.

The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres; Jordan’s foreign secretary; and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem are among those describing the assault as an “ethnic cleansing,” with the U.N. Human Rights Office fearing it could lead to the potential destruction of the Palestinian population. 

A news void is one of the direct impacts of this campaign, potentially leaving possible war crimes with no evidence or documentation.

CPJ documented the following threats to journalists and press freedom in northern Gaza during the recent weeks:

Journalists killed in strikes

CPJ confirmed at least five killings of journalists in Jabalia and Gaza City since October 6: 

• An Israeli drone missile killed AlHassan Hamad, an 18-year-old Palestinian freelance photographer who worked with several media outlets during the war, shortly after he finished a video report in Jabalia on October 6. 

• An Israeli drone strike killed Mohammed Al-Tanani, a 26-year-old Palestinian camera operator for the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV, while his TV crew was reporting on Israeli forces operations in the Jabalia refugee camp on October 9. The strike also injured TV correspondent Tamer Lubbad. Both were wearing “Press” vests and helmets at the time.

• Three Palestinian journalists — Nadia Emad Al Sayed, Saed Radwan, and Haneen Baroud — were killed alongside eight others in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on October 27. The bombs hit one of the classrooms they had turned into a makeshift newsroom. 

“The situation is catastrophic and beyond description,” a camera operator for the privately owned Al-Ghad TV, Abed AlKarim Al-Zwaidi, told CPJ. “We do not know what our fate will be in light of these circumstances.” 

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these killings, repeating previous statements it could not fully address questions if sufficient details about individuals were not provided. The statement reiterated previous comments that it “directs its strikes only towards military targets and military operatives, and does not target civilian objects and civilians, including media organizations and journalists.”

CPJ is also investigating reports that two other journalists were killed during this time in northern Gaza. 

Starvation and aid blocks

Israel, accused of blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza since the start of the war, has throttled food and humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza since October 1 and ordered all residents to evacuate, making it all but impossible for journalists to keep working, several members of the media told CPJ.       

Al-Zwaidi – one of the journalists who described Israel’s actions as ethnic cleansing – told CPJ that journalists, like most civilians in northern Gaza, “have not had food or anything clean to drink for more than 20 days.” He said most journalists are “trying to eat the minimum amount of food that keeps them alive,” and they drink what is “semi-wastewater, full of germs.” 

The IDF’s October 31 response to CPJ’s request for comment said that more than 392 aid trucks, mainly carrying food, had entered northern Gaza in recent weeks, and supplies were available in warehouses scattered throughout the northern region.

The IDF also cited October 28 and 30 announcements by COGAT (Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories), the Israeli unit responsible for the coordination and facilitation of humanitarian initiatives, that it had facilitated patient and staff evacuations and delivered supplies at the Kamal Adwan hospital. One of the area’s last functioning medical facilities, Kamal Adwan, has been repeatedly attacked by Israel, which claims it has been used by Hamas.

Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the U.N. Security Council on October 29 that northern Gaza had received virtually no humanitarian assistance since the start of October. The U.S. envoy to the U.N. warned that Israel must improve its flow of aid or face cuts to American military assistance.

Journalists arrested, detained

• Israeli military forces arrested Nidal Elian, editor-in-chief at the satellite channel Al-Quds Today, on October 22 in Beit Lahia. 

His wife told CPJ that Israeli military forces issued an order through a drone’s loudspeaker for residents to evacuate the area because the IDF was going to destroy it and to go to a school near the Kamal Adwan hospital. When they arrived, Israeli soldiers separated the men from the women and detained Elian. Elian’s whereabouts remain unknown.

• The IDF also detained Al-Ghad TV’s Al-Zwaidi for several hours on October 25. 

After around four hours of bombing and firing on the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia,  Al-Zwaidi told CPJ that Israeli forces ordered everyone in the hospital to go into the yard and remove their clothes down to their underwear. The journalist said their hands were tied tightly and they were forced to march to a nearby Israeli army barrack, with soldiers and tanks following them. 

Al-Zwaidi told CPJ that the soldiers pressed the muzzles of their guns to the detainees’ heads and ordered them to kneel with their heads on the ground for more than five hours in the sun. He said the soldiers beat him twice before releasing him.  

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these detentions, saying that the IDF detains individuals suspected of terrorist activity and releases anyone found not to be involved. The IDF added that detained individuals are “treated in accordance with international law.” 

Coverage constraints

Journalists who spoke to CPJ said there are very few reporters left to document atrocities in northern Gaza. Those who remain have to struggle with communication and internet shutdowns that limit their ability to report the news.

“There is a frightening difficulty in [obtaining] media coverage inside Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip,” Al-Zwaidi told CPJ. Journalists are trying to continue to circumvent the shutdowns by using e-sims, but the need to find areas of higher elevation to get a signal increases their risk of targeting by Israeli forces.

“I face death at every moment in my attempts to provide media coverage and keep the northern Gaza Strip in the spotlight,” Al-Zwaidi said. 

The IDF has also prevented reporters from approaching sites that have been bombed or attacked, further suppressing documentation of alleged crimes, Osama Al Ashi, a camera operator with China’s state-run CCTV television and freelance documentary producer, told CPJ. 

Equipment shortages, low morale

In addition to shortages of vital equipment such as cameras and protective helmets and vests, the morale of journalists still in northern Gaza is dropping as “they feel ignored by the rest of the world,” Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Quraiqi told CPJ. 

“The lack of interest and assistance directed to journalists locally and internationally allows their continuous targeting and killing,” Quraiqi told CPJ. “Unfortunately, no one stands with journalists, neither in the northern nor the southern Gaza Strip, from official, regional, or international bodies, to provide them with the necessary support.”

Northern Gaza “has become one of the most difficult and dangerous environments for journalistic work in the world,” Al Ashi told CPJ. 

“The feeling of fear and anxiety [occurs] all the time. I fear for my family, and I fear being among them; it is a very difficult feeling,” Al Ashi told CPJ. “But I am convinced that my presence as a journalist in the northern Gaza Strip to convey the image is very important. Otherwise, Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip would be isolated from the entire outside world.”

The difficulties for journalists in northern Gaza “is greater than any description,” Basel Khaireddine, a northern Gaza correspondent for the Iranian state-run broadcaster Al-Alam TV, told CPJ. 

“There is a constant deliberate targeting of journalists, not only because they are journalists and transmit the news, but also because the occupation targets all residents,” Khaireddine told CPJ. “Everyone is within its range of fire, and it does not differentiate between a woman, a man, or a child. It also does not differentiate between a journalist and others, even though journalists are civilians.

Restricting medical care

Amid the destruction of Northern Gaza’s medical facilities and detention of medical staff, as of November 8. Israel had not approved the emergency medical evacuation of Al Jazeera camera operators Fadi Al Wahidi and Ali Al Attar for treatment outside the Gaza Strip. Al Wahidi was severely wounded by a gunshot wound in Jabalia on October 9; Al-Attar sustained serious injuries from shrapnel from an October 7 Israeli airstrike.  

 CPJ has joined other rights organizations in urging Israel to authorize their evacuation and treatment. 

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these injured journalists on October 31 by referring CPJ to COGAT. CPJ’s November 1 email to COGAT asking whether the journalists would be allowed to receive medical care outside the Strip did not receive a response by CPJ’s requested November 4 deadline.

Terror allegations against journalists

On October 23, the IDF accused six Palestinian journalists working with Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, raising fears that they could be targeted for killing by Israeli forces.  

The journalists are Anas al-Sharif, Talal Aruki, Ismail Farid, Alaa Salama, Ashraf Saraj, and Hossam Shabat.

Salama, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in southern Gaza and a journalist for 18 years, told CPJ he denied these “false allegations” against him, adding that he worries that “the Israeli army is creating justifications to…target journalists, especially [as] the Palestinian media has played a major role in refuting the Israeli narrative.”

Saraj, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in central and southern Gaza and a journalist for six years, told CPJ he has felt increasingly in danger since the accusations were made. 

“Since the first day of the war, I have continued my journalistic work, and I have proof of that because the screen belies any allegations,” Saraj told CPJ. “Today, I feel like I am waiting for death and the moment when my martyrdom is announced.”

Shabat, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in northern Gaza, told CPJ that anxiety and fear would not deter them from continuing their coverage.

“We convey the truth on Al Jazeera Mubasher, and we move within the areas classified by Israel as safe,” Shabat said. “We are citizens, and we convey their voices. Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth and do not belong to the Hamas movement.” 

Al Jazeera has rejected the allegations against the journalists and CPJ has condemned Israel’s claims that they are members of militant groups, noting that Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven statements without producing credible evidence.  

The IDF said in its October 31 response to CPJ that it had no further comment on the six journalists beyond what was published on October 23.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Egyptian authorities have refused to release Abd el-Fattah until January 2027, in violation of articles 482 and 484 of the country’s Criminal Procedure Law.

Abd el-Fattah was first arrested in September 2019, amidst a crackdown on protests calling for President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s resignation, and was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of anti-state and false news. In September 2024, CPJ separately called on the Egyptian government to release Abd el-Fattah, drop all remaining charges, and cease manipulating legal statutes to unjustly detain him.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The statement also urged Egypt’s international partners to raise Abdelfattah’s case with their counterparts and press for his immediate release.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah was arrested in September 2019 amid a government crackdown on protests demanding that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi resign. Abdelfattah had posted about the protests and arrests on Facebook. In December 2021, he was sentenced to five years in prison on anti-state and false news charges.

On Tuesday, CPJ separately called on the Egyptian government to release Alaa, drop all remaining charges against him, and stop manipulating legal statutes to unjustly imprison him.

Read the full statement in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“After serving his five-year sentence, Egyptian-British blogger Alaa Abdelfattah must be released immediately, and all remaining charges against him must be dropped. He deserves to be reunited with his son and family,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “The Egyptian authorities must uphold their own laws and stop manipulating legal statutes to unjustly imprison Abdelfattah. It is a profound disgrace for Egypt to silence such a vital voice of conscience behind bars.”

Abdelfattah’s family and his campaign for release wrote on social media platform X, “We hope that the law will be respected and Alaa will be freed and reunited with his son, Khaled.”

However, Abdelfattah’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, told the independent media outlet Al-Manassa that Abdelfattah is “being subjected to abuse, oppression, and manipulation of legal texts.” Ali said prosecutors calculated the start of the sentence from the date it was ratified on January 3, 2022 — not from the date of his arrest — which means Abdelfattah’s release date is now set for January 2027.

Egyptian authorities’ failure to release Abdelfattah by September 29 would be in violation of articles 482 and 484 of the country’s Criminal Procedure Law.

In April 2024, CPJ and 26 other press freedom and human rights organizations sent a letter to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) urging the UNWGAD to determine whether Abdelfattah’s detention is arbitrary and violates international law.

The 2019 arrest, which took place about six months after Abdelfattah was released after serving a previous five-year sentence, occurred amid a government crackdown on protests demanding that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi resign. Abdelfattah had posted about the protests and arrests on Facebook and wrote about politics and human rights violations for numerous outlets, including the independent Al-Shorouk newspaper and the progressive Mada Masr news website.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The appeal was submitted by 34 organizations, including CPJ, and urged the UNWGAD to consider Abdelfattah’s case and issue its opinion on whether the journalist’s detention is arbitrary and contrary to international law.

Abdelfattah was arrested in September 2019, a few months after his conditional release from prison, where he had served a five-year sentence. He has written about politics and human rights violations for numerous outlets, including the independent Al-Shorouk newspaper and the progressive Mada Masr news website. In December 2021, he was sentenced to another five years in prison on anti-state and false news charges.

Read the full letter in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

23 November 2023

Dear Members of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,

We, the undersigned 34 freedom of expression and human rights organisations, are writing regarding the recent submission to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) filed on behalf of the award-winning writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a British-Egyptian citizen.

On 14 November 2023, Alaa Abd El-Fattah and his family filed an urgent appeal with the UNWGAD, submitting that his continuing detention in Egypt is arbitrary and contrary to international law. Alaa Abd El-Fattah and his family are represented by an International Counsel team led by English barrister Can Yeğinsu.

Alaa Abd-El Fattah has spent much of the past decade imprisoned in Egypt on charges related to his writing and activism and remains arbitrarily detained in Wadi al-Natrun prison and denied consular visits. He is a key case of concern to our organisations.

Around this time last year (11 November 2022), UN Experts in the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council joined the growing chorus of human rights voices demanding Abd el-Fattah’s immediate release.

We, the undersigned organisations, are writing in support of the recent UNWGAD submission and to urge the Working Group to consider and announce their opinion on Abd El-Fattah’s case at the earliest opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

Brett Solomon, Executive Director, Access Now

Ahmed Samih Farag, General Director, Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies

Quinn McKew, Executive Director, ARTICLE 19

Bahey eldin Hassan, Director, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)

Jodie Ginsberg, President, Committee to Protect Journalists

Sayed Nasr, Executive Director, EgyptWide for Human Rights

Ahmed Attalla, Executive Director, Egyptian Front for Human Rights

Samar Elhusseiny, Programs Officer, Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF)

Jillian C. York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN

Wadih Al Asmar, President, EuroMed Rights

James Lynch, Co-Director, FairSquare

Ruth Kronenburg, Executive Director, Free Press Unlimited

Khalid Ibrahim, Executive Director, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)

Adam Coogle, Deputy Middle East Director, Human Rights Watch

Mostafa Fouad, Head of Programs, HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement

Sarah Sheykhali, Executive Director, HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement

Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Director, International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute

Matt Redding, Head of Advocacy, IFEX

Alice Mogwe, President, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Shireen Al Khatib, Acting Director, The Palestinian Center For Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)

Liesl Gerntholtz, Director, Freedom To Write Center, PEN America

Grace Westcott, President, PEN Canada

Romana Cacchioli, Executive Director, PEN International

Tess McEnery, Executive Director, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)

Antoine Bernard, Director of Advocacy and Assistance, Reporters Sans Frontières

Ricky Monahan Brown, President, Scottish PEN

Ahmed Salem, Executive Director, Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR)

Mohamad Najem, Executive Director, SMEX

Mazen Darwish, General Director, The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)

Mai El-Sadany, Executive Director, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)

Kamel Labidi, Board member, Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State

Aline Batarseh, Executive Director, Visualizing Impact

Menna Elfyn, President, Wales PEN Cymru

Miguel Martín Zumalacárregui, Head of the Europe Office, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

Ulate had taken over the case in August 2022 from two other lawyers, Romeo Montoya García and Mario Castañeda, after the prosecutor in Zamora’s case announced that they were under investigation. After less than three months of representing Zamora, Ulate left Guatemala for a trip to Honduras. The attacks, he said, stopped abruptly.

Looking back, Ulate believes the harassment was part of a clear pattern. Other lawyers who would go on to represent Zamora — there were 10 in total by the time of the journalist’s June conviction on money laundering charges widely considered to be retaliation for his work — were harassed, investigated, or even jailed. 

“We knew that the system was against us, and that everything we, the legal team, did around the case was being closely scrutinized,” Ulate told CPJ. 

Zamora’s experience retaining legal counsel, while extreme, is hardly unique. CPJ has identified lawyers of journalists under threat in Iran, China, Belarus, Turkey, and Egypt, countries that are among the world’s worst jailers of journalists. To be sure, lawyers are not just targeted for representing journalists. “Globally lawyers are increasingly criminalized or disciplined for taking on sensitive cases or speaking publicly on rule of law, human rights, and good governance issues,” said Ginna Anderson, the associate director of the American Bar Association, which monitors global conditions for legal professionals. 

But lawyers and human rights advocates told CPJ that when a lawyer is harassed for representing a journalist, the threats can have chilling effects on the free flow of information. Inevitably, journalists unable to defend themselves against retaliatory charges are more likely to be jailed – leaving citizens less likely to be informed of matters of public interest.  

A barometer of civil liberties 

Attacks on the legal profession – like attacks on journalists – can be a barometer of civil liberties in a country, legal experts told CPJ. Hong Kong, once viewed as a safe harbor for independent journalists, is one such example. The territory has seen multiple members of the press prosecuted under Beijing’s 2020 national security law, including media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, who faces life imprisonment. Lai, a British citizen, is represented by both U.K. and Hong Kong legal teams, which work independently of each other, and both have faced pressure.  

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the head of the U.K. team, has spoken openly on X, formerly Twitter,  about attacks on Lai’s U.K.-based lawyers, from smears in the Chinese state press to formal statements by Hong Kong authorities. Gallagher has faced death threats, attempts to access her bank and email accounts, and efforts to impersonate her online. “That stuff is quite draining and attritional and designed to eat into your time. They want to make it too much hassle to continue the case,” Gallagher told the Irish Times.

The Hong Kong legal team representing Lai — who has been convicted of fraud and is on trial for foreign collusion — has also appeared to have come under pressure from authorities. After Lai’s U.K. lawyers angered Beijing by discussing Lai’s case with a British minister, the Hong Kong legal team issued a statement distancing itself from the U.K. lawyers.   

Any appearance of working with foreigners could compromise not only Lai’s case but also the standing of his lawyers, said Doreen Weisenhaus, a media law expert at Northwestern University who previously taught at the University of Hong Kong.  

“They have to appreciate the potential harm that they could face moving forward — that they could become targeted — as they try to vigorously represent Jimmy Lai,” she told CPJ. 

CPJ reached out to Robertsons, the Hong Kong legal firm representing Lai, via the firm’s online portal and did not receive a reply.

Moves to isolate and intimidate lawyers working on Lai’s case are part of a larger crackdown over the last decade, including China’s 2015 roundup of 300 lawyers and civil society members. “In many ways, China institutionalized wholesale campaigns of going after journalists, activists, and now lawyers,” said Weisenhaus.  

Defending journalists who cover protests 

In Iran – another country where the judiciary operates largely at the government’s behest –   lawyers representing journalists have been targeted in the wake of the 2022 nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. Those protests saw the arrests of thousands of demonstrators and dozens of journalists, including Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who helped break the story of Amini’s hospitalization. The two reporters are accused of spying for the United States; the two remain in custody while awaiting the verdict in their closed-door trials.  

Hamedi and Mohammadi’s lawyer, Mohammed Ali Kamfiroozi, who also represented human rights defenders, received warnings to dissuade him from continuing his work: phone calls from unlisted numbers, threats in the mail, ominous messages to his family, and an official letter from authorities telling him to stop his work, according to CPJ’s sources inside the country. Nevertheless, Kamfiroozi continued his work, publishing regular updates about his clients’ cases on X until he, too, was arrested on December 15, 2022 while inquiring at a courthouse about a client.

Kamfiroozi’s last post on X before his arrest lamented the state of Iran’s judiciary: “This level of disregard for explicit and obvious legal standards is regrettable.” 

Kamfiroozi was released from Fashafouyeh prison after 25 days in detention and has not returned to his work as a lawyer, according to CPJ’s sources inside the country. A new legal team has since taken over the journalists’ cases. Since then, the crackdown on the legal profession has continued, with lawyers being summoned by the judiciary to sign a form stating they will not publicly release information about clients facing national security charges – a common accusation facing journalists. Lawyers who fail to sign can be disbarred and arrested at the discretion of local judges. 

Belarusian lawyers have also been muzzled in the wake of nationwide protests. After widespread demonstrations following the disputed August 2020 presidential election — during which dozens of journalists were arrested — Belarusian lawyers were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements preventing them from speaking publicly about many criminal cases. At least 56 lawyers representing human rights defenders or opposition leaders were disbarred or had their licenses revoked in the two years after the protests, and some were jailed, according to the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Initiative, the American Bar Association, and the group Lawyers for Lawyers. 

Belarusian lawyer Siarhej Zikratski, whose clients included the now-shuttered independent news outlet Tut.by, imprisoned Belsat TV journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, and program director of Press Club Belarus Alla Sharko, was required to undergo a recertification exam which ultimately resulted in authorities revoking his license. He fled the country in May 2021 after he was disbarred and amid ongoing pressure from the government on his colleagues.

In the months after he left, Tut.by was banned in Belarus and Andreyeva, who was nearing the end of a two-year imprisonment, was sentenced to another eight years on retaliatory charges. (Sharko was released in August 2021 after serving eight months.) 

“They took away my beloved profession and my business,” Zikratski wrote in a Facebook post announcing his emigration to Vilnius, Lithuania. “I will continue to do everything I can to change the situation in Belarus. Unfortunately, I cannot do that from Minsk.”

Lawyers in exile can lose their livelihoods 

While exile is not an uncommon choice to escape state harassment, it comes at a cost: lawyers are unable to continue their work in their home countries. 

“The bulk of the harassment against media and human rights lawyers, including criminal defense lawyers who represent journalists and other human rights defenders [occurs] in-country,” said Anderson of the ABA. “Increasingly this is forcing lawyers into exile where they face enormous challenges continuing to practice or participate in media rights advocacy.” 

This was the case for Ethiopian human rights lawyer Tadele Gebremedhin, who faced intense harassment from local authorities after he began defending reporters covering the country’s civil conflict in the Tigray region that began in November 2020.   

Gebremedhin represented freelance journalists Amir Aman Kiyaro and Thomas Engida, Ethio Forum journalists Abebe Bayu and Yayesew Shimelis, Awramba Times managing editor Dawit Kebede, and at least a dozen others, including the staff of the independent now-defunct broadcaster Awlo Media Center, whose charges are related to their reporting on the Tigray region. 

Gebremedhin told CPJ that the harassment started in May 2021 with thinly veiled threats from government officials and anonymous calls telling him not to represent journalists because members of the media are terrorists. He strongly suspected that he was under physical and digital surveillance, and his bank account was blocked.  In November 2021, he was detained by authorities and held for 66 days without charge before being released. 

“That was my payment for working with the journalists,” Gebremedhin said. 

He fled to the United States shortly after his release from police custody, and now works as a researcher at the University of Minnesota Law School Human Rights Center. Just a few of the dozens of reporters he defended are still working in journalism. While they are not behind bars, the damage done to civil society remains, Gebremedhin said. 

Lawyers arrested alongside journalists

Sometimes, lawyers are arrested alongside the journalists they represent. In the runup to Turkey’s May 2023 presidential elections, Turkish lawyer Resul Temur was taken into government custody in Diyarbakır province for his alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkish authorities consider a terrorist organization, along with several Kurdish journalists who were also his clients. 

Authorities took his work phone, computer, and all of his electronic devices, including his 9-year old daughter’s tablet, and all of the paper case files he had in his office, Temur told CPJ. He was released pending investigation, and fears he’ll soon be charged. 

“Lawyers like me who are not deterred by judicial harassment will continue to be the targets of Turkish authorities,” he said.

In Egypt, a country where numerous human rights defenders have been locked up, Mohamed el-Baker, the lawyer of prominent blogger and activist Alaa Abdelfattah, was arrested as he accompanied Abdelfattah to police questioning in September 2019. Authorities charged both with spreading false news and supporting a banned group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

After serving nearly four years of his sentence and amid growing international pressure, el-Baker was granted a presidential pardon in July. However, it remains unclear if the lawyer will be allowed to return to work. Many of his clients, Abdelfattah among them, remain in prison. 

Retaliation leads to censorship

The damage, from Egypt to Turkey to Guatemala and beyond, is great. When lawyers for reporters fear retaliation as much as the journalists do, it creates an environment of censorship that harms citizens’ ability to stay informed about what is happening in their countries.

“When journalists can’t have access to lawyers, they’re kind of left on their own,” Weisenhaus told CPJ. “I think we’ll still see courageous journalists who will continue to write about what they perceive as the wrongs in their country and their society. But those numbers could dwindle if they’re constantly being prosecuted and convicted.”

Additional research contributed by Dánae Vílchez, Özgür Öğret, and CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program staff.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Katherine Jacobsen.

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated

Read over 400 magazine and newsletter back issues here

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Susie Day.

There are dictators in the world who wield absolute power, and then there are U.S. Senators. Very few understand the power these 100 individuals hold in the world's most powerful country. A single senator can effectively block any legislation. They don't need to give a reason, and often do it entirely in secret. President Joe Biden, who was a senator for decades, knows this and also knows he needs the vote of every Democratic senator to pass critical appropriations during Congress' current lame duck session.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, as one of his proud last acts in office, along with other Senators, should block further Egyptian military aid until Alaa is free.

Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the longest-serving senator currently in office, is retiring on January 2nd after 48 years. He's been a champion of human rights, authoring the "Leahy Law" that denies U.S. aid to human rights abusing regimes. Senator Leahy or one of his colleagues could make a vital difference, and save lives, by blocking any bill in this session that shores up human rights abusing governments.

Take Egypt.

The U.S.-backed Egyptian dictator President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi rose to power after a military coup in 2013. His image is omnipresent in this sprawling capital city of 20 million, on buildings, lamp posts, and across the mass media, which is effectively controlled by the state. More than 60,000 political prisoners are locked up here; the true number is unknown. The most prominent is Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a writer, technologist and leading activist in the 2011 Arab Spring revolution that overthrew Egypt's previous, long-standing, U.S.-backed dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

Yet Alaa, a dual Egyptian and British citizen, has been in prison for most of the last decade. His case received global attention when Egypt hosted COP27, the UN climate summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh. Alaa had been on hunger strike for more than 200 days. As COP27 began on November 6th, he escalated his protest, refusing to drink water altogether. Last week, Alaa told family members, in their first prison visit in a month, that he suffered a near-death experience that week. The German Chancellor, the French President, the British Prime Minister, and President Biden had all raised his case directly with Sisi. Prison authorities medically intervened secretly, to avoid the crisis his death during COP27 would have provoked.

The Sisi regime survives largely thanks to massive support from the United States. Egypt receives $1.3 billion annually in military aid, with an additional $125 million-plus in economic aid. Egypt has long been the second-highest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, after Israel. Its support is delivered through annual Congressional appropriations, subject to verifiable compliance with human rights standards. The U.S. State Department oversees this massive aid package with the Pentagon.

As part of the process, the State Department is required to produce a human rights report on Egypt. Its most recent 72-page litany of horrors includes extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture and cruel, inhuman treatment; life-threatening prison conditions and arbitrary detention. The list goes on. While any rational reading of the report would result in the denial of aid, the State Department routinely invokes a "national security" waiver, authorizing the aid despite the rampant abuses.

"You train their police officers, their army officers," Laila Soueif, Alaa's mother, a math professor and renowned activist in her own right, told the Democracy Now! news hour during an interview in their family apartment in Cairo. "This is a U.S. operation. The helicopters they use to track people in the desert, this is the U.S. This whole Sisi thing is a U.S. security operation. Really, the U.S. can decide, if they want to, that they want the regime to do this or not do that."

Alaa's family has been tirelessly advocating for his release, at great risk. His youngest sister, Sanaa, 28, has already been imprisoned for three years for her activism. "The U.S. has stakes in that regime, stakes in that oppression, and so has responsibility," Sanaa said on Democracy Now!, sitting next to her mother. "It's not leverage. Leverage is as if you're not a stakeholder in this. You are a big part of this. You send $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt every year."

President Biden was photographed with Sisi at COP27, laughing with the dictator. Sisi has also been invited to next month's U.S.- Africa Leaders Summit at the White House. Like any Western-aligned autocrat seeking legitimacy, Sisi is reportedly seeking a one-on-one meeting with Biden.

President Biden should work for the immediate release of Alaa Abd El-Fattah and many more Egyptian political prisoners before granting Sisi a plum White House meeting. Meanwhile, Sen. Patrick Leahy, as one of his proud last acts in office, along with other Senators, should block further Egyptian military aid until Alaa is free.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Amy Goodman, Denis Moynihan.

In a wide-ranging interview recorded in Cairo, we speak with Laila Soueif and Sanaa Seif, the mother and sister of British-Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah, about his health, his case, his family and his hopes for freedom. After visiting him in prison, they describe how El-Fattah started a water strike on the first day of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to draw international attention to the country’s human rights violations and protest his seemingly indefinite imprisonment. He paused after collapsing and suffering a “near-death experience” when prison officials appeared reluctant to record his full water and hunger strike. Seif says they set a date to restart his hunger strike, once he regains physical and mental strength. Laila Soueif discusses how El-Fattah helped her raise his two younger sisters when her now-deceased husband was in jail for his own activism. They also describe his relationship with his son, Khaled, who is nonverbal and diagnosed with autism, calling El-Fattah a “patient, kind father.” Recalling his most recent trial, they lay out how he was sentenced to five years in prison last December, and explain how El-Fattah’s lawyers never had access to the case trial or were allowed to argue his case. “There is clearly a vendetta” against El-Fattah, notes Seif, who adds “it’s pointless to talk about the legal procedures [since] each step of it is a sham.” Seif also speaks about the mass imprisonment of other political prisoners and the major influence and responsibility the U.S. has in freeing El-Fattah and others. “This whole operation [in Egypt] is a U.S. operation,” says Soueif, who says she wants El-Fattah freed and deported to the U.K. to keep him safe.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The family of imprisoned British Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah visited him on Thursday for the first time since he ended his full hunger and water strike, which they say occurred after he collapsed inside his prison shower last week. El-Fattah had intensified his strike on the first day of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to draw international attention to the country’s human rights violations and protest his seemingly indefinite imprisonment. We go to Cairo to speak with his aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, who was among the visitors and says El-Fattah may resume his hunger strike if the British government does not more aggressively demand his release. “It really breaks my heart to think of him going back on hunger strike when he is so thin and so weak,” but the campaign so far “has left no one in any doubt that Alaa should be free,” she says.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On November 10, state security forces arrested Fayez, editor-in-chief of state-run newspaper Akhbar El-Barlman, from his home in Cairo, according to news reports and a local journalist following the case who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on the condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. On the same day, authorities charged Fayez with spreading false news, misusing social media to incite a terrorist crime, and belonging to and funding a terrorist group and ordered his detention pending trial.

Fayez’s arrest stems from a November 8 Facebook post in which he claimed that prison authorities are force-feeding imprisoned journalist Alaa Abdelfattah to keep him alive during his prolonged hunger strike, according to news reports and the local journalist. Abdelfattah, imprisoned since 2019, began a hunger strike in April of no more than 100 calories per day, and escalated his hunger strike to coincide with the November 11 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, including stopping drinking water.

“By arresting journalist Ahmed Fayez for speaking about imprisoned journalist Alaa Abdelfattah, the Egyptian government is exposing its vendetta against local journalists and the press sector as a whole,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Fayez, drop all charges against him, and stop arresting journalists for doing their job.”

Ahead of COP27, human rights groups and local activists pressured the Egyptian government to improve the state of human rights and to release Abdelfattah.

CPJ’s email to the office of the Ministry of Interior, which oversees the security forces and prison system, did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Relatives of Alaa Abd El Fattah said Monday that they've received proof in the form of a letter that the jailed, hunger-striking Egyptian-British dissident is alive.

"I'm so relieved. We just got a note from prison to my mother, Alaa is alive, he says he's drinking water again."

"How are you, Mama? I'm sure you're really worried about me," El Fattah's letter, which is dated November 12, begins. "From today I'm drinking water again so you can stop worrying until you see me yourself. Vital signs today are OK. I'm measuring regularly and receiving medical attention."

The 40-year-old father—who according to Egyptian authorities received a "medical intervention" last week—promises to write again and asks his mother to bring him an MP3 player and vitamins when she is able to visit.

Sanaa Seif, El Fattah's sister, tweeted: "I'm so relieved. We just got a note from prison to my mother, Alaa is alive, he says he's drinking water again... He says he'll say more as soon as he can. It's definitely his handwriting. Proof of life, at last."

"Today is the first day I've been able to take a proper breath in eight days," Seif told the BBC. "Now we know he's alive. I'd know his handwriting anywhere. But when I read [the letter] again and again it leaves me with more questions. Why have they been refusing his lawyer access to him, even with a permit?  Why did they hold this letter back from us for two days? Is it just cruelty to punish the family for speaking up?"

Khaled Ali, an attorney representing El Fattah's family, said on Facebook Monday that Alaa also wrote in the letter that he was "fine and under medical supervision."

El Fattah has been imprisoned for most of the past decade for his activism. He played a prominent role in the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East in the early 2010s and is currently serving a five-year sentence for allegedly disseminating "false news undermining national security," a common charge used to silence activists in the Middle Eastern country run by authoritarian President Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Subjected to torture by beating, solitary confinement, and other methods, El Fattah began his hunger strike 206 days ago on April 2. Earlier this month—with his health already dangerously deteriorated—he stopped drinking water as world leaders, activists, and others gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP27.

World leaders, human rights groups, Nobel laureates, climate activists, and others have called for the release of El Fattah and the tens of thousands of other political prisoners jailed in Egypt. Demonstrations in Egypt, Britain, the United States, and elsewhere have demanded the dissident's immediate release.

In a Monday interview with Times Radio, U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he was keeping "a very, very close eye on this case."

"What we will do," he said, "is we will keep working to secure consular access because he is British dual national and that is what we expect and we'll keep pushing to get resolution on this long standing and very difficult case."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

United Nations delegates have gathered for two weeks in the exclusive Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, seeking consensus on tackling catastrophic climate change. Unfortunately, this crucial summit, known as COP27 for the 27th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Convention, is being hosted by Egypt, one of the world’s most repressive governments. Its autocratic ruler, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, was a general when the Egyptian army refused to suppress the January, 2011 Arab Spring mass uprising centered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. After the Egyptian people overthrew the long-standing, U.S.-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak, they held elections and formed a popular government. That didn’t last long. A 2013 military coup followed by a sham election put al-Sisi in power. He enjoys full support from the U.S. government despite being more repressive than Mubarak.

An example of al-Sisi’s brutality is the imprisonment of 40-year-old writer and organizer Alaa Abd El-Fattah. Alaa, who holds joint Egyptian/British citizenship, has been imprisoned for most of the last ten years, targeted for eloquently advocating for democracy and liberation. Alaa was key during the Arab Spring, inspiring people with his words and creating free speech tools on the internet. In the violent Egyptian police state with pervasive surveillance and omnipresent secret police, though, advocating for freedom is a crime. Desperate after a decade of arbitrary and abusive detention, Alaa Abd El-Fattah began a hunger strike over 220 days ago. On November 6th, as COP27 opened and world leaders descended on Sharm el-Sheikh, Alaa escalated his fast, refusing water as well. Without immediate international intervention, Alaa will likely die before the final gavel drops on COP27.

Alaa’s mother, Laila Soueif, has been waiting every day outside the prison where her son is locked up, demanding proof he is still alive. A mathematics professor, she is a renowned human rights activist herself. On Thursday, she was told that her son had received an unexplained “medical intervention.” Human Rights Watch has warned Egypt against “imposing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” and that “hunger striking is a political act.”

Alaa’s lawyer was informed that he could visit Alaa, but, upon arriving at the prison gate, was denied entry.

Alaa’s two sisters, Mona and Sanaa, staged a sit-in at the British Foreign Office in London, calling on the government of newly-installed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to intervene on Alaa’s behalf, and to bring him to the UK. Sunak, who is attending COP27, wrote to the family, “I will continue to stress to President Sisi the importance that we attach to the swift resolution of Alaa’s case, and an end to his unacceptable treatment.” Sanaa, 28, is now at COP27, and has helped bring human rights front and center onto the climate justice agenda. Sanaa, who has spent three years in prison herself, has been threatened with arrest.

President Biden has enormous leverage over the Egyptian government, and is attending COP27. Fifty-six Congressmembers have urged him to demand Alaa’s release. While campaigning in 2020, Biden actually tweeted in support of other imprisoned Egyptian dissidents, writing, “Arresting, torturing, and exiling activists…or threatening their families is unacceptable. No more blank checks for Trump’s ‘favorite dictator.’”

Instead of fist-bumping the US-backed dictator al-Sisi, the way he did with the autocratic head of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salman, Biden should demand the immediate release of Alaa and all other political prisoners. Laila Soueif wrote to Biden and other world leaders attending COP27, “If Alaa dies you too will have blood on your hands.”

In 2019, Mada Masr, one of Egypt’s last remaining independent news organizations, published a piece by Alaa, addressing the climate. It also appears in Alaa’s book, “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated”:

“The crisis, for certain, is not a crisis of awareness, but of surrendering to the inevitability of inequality. If the only thing that unites us is the threat, then every person or group will move to defend their interests. But if we meet around a hope in a better future, a future where we put an end to all forms of inequality, this global awareness will be transformed into positive energy. Hope here is a necessary action. Our rosy dreams will probably not come to pass. But if we leave ourselves to our nightmares we’ll be killed by fear before the Floods arrive.”

Alaa Abd El-Fattah should be attending COP27, addressing world leaders—not on the edge of death in an Egyptian prison.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Amy Goodman, Denis Moynihan.

On Monday, state security officers arrested Moussa, a freelance journalist who contributes to independent news websites Masr al-Arabia and Al-Bawabh News, at his home in the northern city of Alexandria, according to news reports and a local journalist following all three cases who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on the condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.

According to that journalist and a report by local news website Darb, on October 9, state security officers arrested Shnin, a reporter for the independent news website Arab Ofok, at his home in the capital, Cairo. Separately, the local journalist told CPJ that on September 6, state security officers arrested Diab, a reporter for state-run newspaper Al-Ahram, from Cairo International Airport as he boarded a flight to China, according to news reports.

As of November 8, the whereabouts, charges, and reasons for the arrest of Moussa, Shnin, and Diab are unknown, according to the local journalist.

“By arresting three journalists ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27), President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government is making a clear statement that it does not care for the protection of journalists or human rights,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Egyptian authorities must release journalists Mohamed Mostafa Moussa, Amr Shnin, and Mahmoud Saad Diab, and allow journalists to work freely without fear of detention.”

Human rights defenders have been pressuring Egyptian authorities to improve the state of human rights and release imprisoned journalists, including Alaa Abdelfattah, ahead of COP27, which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh on November 11.

Last week, CPJ joined more than 60 human rights groups in calling for the release of Abdelfattah, whose health is gravely deteriorating as a result of a hunger strike.

CPJ’s email to the office of the Ministry of Interior, which oversees the security forces and prison system, did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on Tuesday joined the growing chorus of calls demanding that United Nations Climate Change Conference host Egypt release hunger-striking political prisoner Alaa Abd El Fattah.

"Human rights and climate movements are stronger when we stand in solidarity together."

El Fattah, who is Egyptian-British, has been jailed almost continuously for the past decade for his activism, especially his prominent role in the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East in the early 2010s. He is currently serving a five-year sentence after being convicted of spreading "false news undermining national security," a common charge against activists in Egypt.

El Fattah's health has dangerously deteriorated as a result of the hunger strike he's been on since April 2 to protest the torture—including brutal beatings and solitary confinement—and other abuses he says he's endured at the hands of authoritarian President Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's forces. 

"It is depressing to see that human life is at risk," Scholz told reporters in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on Tuesday. "A decision needs to be taken, a release has to be made possible so that it doesn't come to it that the hunger striker dies."

Referring to the U.N. climate conference, Thunberg wrote on Twitter that "during COP27, we urge the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those held simply for peacefully exercising their human rights, implementing criteria set by local NGOs for these releases: fairness, transparency, inclusiveness, and urgency. One of these prisoners is Alaa Abd El Fattah."

"A system that doesn't address the needs for climate justice and securing human rights is a system that has failed everyone—we need to keep both in mind," the 19-year-old Fridays for Future founder added. "Human rights and climate movements are stronger when we stand in solidarity together. There is no climate justice without social justice and human rights."

On Tuesday, Amr Darwish, an Egyptian lawmaker with close ties to el-Sisi, confronted El Fattah's sister, Sanaa Seif, as she spoke at a press briefing, accusing her of "inciting foreign countries to put pressure on Egypt" before being escorted away by security.

Human rights groups have sounded the alarm in recent months over the Egyptian government's persecution of climate activists, as well as voicing concerns that the official app being used at COP27 could be exploited to spy on environmentalists and other dissidents.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The family of the imprisoned Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El-Fattah says they no longer know if he is still alive or if he is being force-fed, more than 50 hours after he stopped drinking water in an intensification of a six-month hunger strike. We feature an address by Alaa’s sister Sanaa Seif at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. “The symbolic battle has been won by your show of support,” says Seif. “I just hope his body and he is not sacrificed for it.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Photograph Source: Lilian Wagdy – CC BY 2.0

For the last weeks I have been frantically immersed in the works of this iconic blogger, technologist, philosopher and activist who is probably the most cause célèbre, throughout Egypt and the entire Arab World. For almost a decade now, he is held in prisons in Egypt predominately because of his intellect that is seen as an ultimate threat to a draconian dictatorship after a traumatic people’s revolution of 2011.

Abd el-Fattah’s book “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated,” brings forth personal essays, theories on technology, notes, poems and deeply heartfelt reflections on prison life, all combined to give an essence of urgency, defiance and an air of resistance that refuses to budge in-spite of all the incredible injustices. His ideas and his utter veracity make him a symbol of hope in an Egypt that has suffered incredible misery and political shenanigans after a disheartening militaristic takeover following the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and his 30 years dictatorship. Alaa is the not only a symbol of hope but also the symbol of change for Egypt itself and the evolution of civil society in the larger Arab world.

Since most of his texts were smuggled out during his numerous detentions in Egyptian prisons, the collection gives us a sense of an awakening to the militarism, torturous barbarity of a post-Arab Spring Egypt. They are no delusions of grandeur. The work brings together the fraught conditions he and many are dealing with. The sequence of events and experiences are dizzying to say the least. Abd El-Fattah supported initiatives that advanced citizen’s awareness, citizen’s participation, real investigative journalism on social media against the political apathy that was and is so dire across Egypt.

First arrested for his blog, which he and his wife Manal Bahey El-Din Hassan were actively instrumental in cementing mass participation and resistance on a mass scale. The blogs called Manalaa and Omraneya are basically the first Arab blogs to gather workers, students and youth and paved the way for the eventual confrontation that actually took place against the Mubarak dictatorship in 2011. Manalaa even won the Deutsch Welle’s Best blog and The Reporters Without Borders prize, six years before Arab Spring itself.

One moment he is the voice on al Jazeera live informing the world how thousands of demonstrators are in-front of the Egyptian Parliament demanding freedom, reform and revolution. The next moment he is in Silicon Valley at RightsCon delivering the keynote address on the perils of digital monopolisation regarding modality of communication and human rights. Not long after that he is thrown into a prison cell and denied any significant contact to the outside world.

In a letter to his family, he wrote:

“If one wished for death hunger strike would not be a struggle. If one was holding on to life out of instinct then what’s the point of a strike. If you are postponing death only out of shame at your mothers tears, then you are decreasing the chances of victory. I have taken a decision to escalate at a time I see as fitting for my struggle for my freedom and the freedom prisoner of a conflict they have no part in or they are trying to exist from. For a victims of a regime that is unable to handle its crises except with oppression, unable to re-produce itself except for incarceration. The decision was taken while I am flooded with your love and longing for your company. Much love, until we meet soon. Alaa”

How can we seriously talk about environmental shifts when Egypt, once the intellectual light of the Arab world, continues to rest on the lowest level of human index of global development, on human equity, on education, on intellectual property, on scientific achievements, on patents, on gender equality, on human rights. Seriously?  As Naomi Klein so aptly put it “This COP is more than just green washing a polluting state, its green washing a police state.”

What kind of country are we really talking about here, when a society is not even able to critically look at itself? When a State actually does not make any attempt or even think about reversing its own control mechanisms and will stop incarcerating those who wish to change to core of that given society for the better? How can we even attempt to find solutions when one of the brightest and most critical minds in Egypt is languishing in prison for no apparent reason but simply because he actually questions the status-quo where it needs to be dismantled on all levels? Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has been on a hunger-strike for over six months and is on the verge of death. He represents thousands of prisoners of conscious in Egyptian cells today. We cannot go on with hope against hope or even hope abandoned, phrases I am reminded by the words of Nadezhda Mandelstam who wrote her poignant texts regarding Stalin’s terror throughout the 1930s.

Honestly speaking, if there is going to be any shift in our dealing with the environmental catastrophes that are facing us, then naturally there must be a conscious shift in dealing with the humans who inhabit this planet. If we even attempt to count the amount of people imprisoned across the globe just for being conscious, the numbers are shockingly high. It is safe to say that human rights seem to be an expandable issue these days. The 21st century is cynically bored, where unlike the bygone days of 1970s when the Helsinki Accord, a détente between East & West was constructed. The declaration on human rights that was signed there, gave at least hope and a tinkling of consciousness. Thirty-five countries upheld, on paper at-least, the right of choice, of free political thought and the right of individual conscious. Today, almost 48 years on, our world seems so drastically changed that really one wonders how we even can start to address issues of environmental catastrophes, when so many are languishing in horrific conditions. And in most cases, these are the very people who can bring intelligent, necessary and needed solutions to the table.

In looking at the current state of affairs, there is absolutely no serious organism for self-empowerment in the current Egyptian socio-political model. The political debates, if one can call Abdel Fattah al-Sissi’s mode of governance that, in the Egyptian context lacks a theoretical frame that incorporates any critical assessment and evaluation of the post Arab spring experience. How to restructure the relations between the State, the market and other organised sectors of society for its citizenry? An open and actually critically informed study on what could be a possibility of a potentially post-capitalist potentialities are simply non-existent and even specially non-discussible. After the debacle of Mohamed Morsi, the central logic of the Egyptian State was its refusal to recognise the inherent need for a thorough process of transformation. Instead, the structural apparatus of the State continued to be dependent of foreign aid to massively bolster the Egyptian military and or fund wasteful outdated and hideous mega-projects to further bolster the State Apparatus by ensuring spending on a new capital for example and building the largest military governance administrative complex in the entire world, larger even than the Pentagon in USA or Nicolae Ceaușescu gross “Peoples Palace” in Bucharest.

Where is the moment to apply the same international standard on human rights and where is the desire to expand on something parallel to the Helsinki Accords? It often appears as though on all levels standards applied globally vary if one is dealing with the Northern hemisphere and when it comes to the Southern, like all norm of economic abuse and manipulation but the value of individuals is still up for grabs in the Global South.

The so-called notion of transition here is obviously framed in the context that the “old” State will never die, and that the new structural State can never appear regardless of any revolutionary actions. Now I ask the question, how can an old establish dictatorial system, that systematically oppresses thousands upon thousands (if not millions) can offer any fresher new environmental solutions when the very mindset is deadly against the likes of women and men who are actually informed about the way reality should shift for the betterment of not only their own citizenry but humanity at large. Yes, I know I sound naive, yes, but the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, is simple and yet so obviously unjust. I mean to arrest a guy because he wants his society to be freer, more open, more just and to develop further in the 21st century. Really?

The contempt of democracy, the relationship of the State to religion and justice – the so- called liberal mainstays of our liberal democracy – have been reformulated in the draconian Egyptian context – to fit the militaristic paradigm. Thus, since democracy is the rule of majority, this means our State must serve as an instrument of promoting the interest of the majority, that in the al-Sissi promotional manifesto means the use of pseudo democratic tools (facade) to encourage sub-psychological promotion of fear and paranoia against those very factions that question the legitimacy of his dictatorial rule. It also means that the liberal state doctrine of Mosque and State is hypocritical, since it the State that supposedly protects the rights of religious minorities (like Copts, Shia, & Jews) then it must be somehow abandoned and the Egyptian State must serve the religious majority. Hence any or all protests that deviate any norms of militarism are labelled either anti-Egyptian.

Achieving justice in the context of al-Sissi, is formulated specifically to the masses as though Egypt is somehow rectifying the historical injustices done to the Sunni majority by the Coptic’s, Shia, Jews and all those so-called alien invaders, intruders and conspiracy mongers who continue to enjoy privileges of being protected by the State. Many reformed activists who had opposed the former regime felt themselves tied to sectional demands as the majority of the revolutionaries concentrated on the actual struggle in Tahir Square.

In the UK multiple political organisations are demanding the release of political prisoners. Fifteen Nobel laureates are demanding the immediate release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah for the COP27 “….to devote part of your agenda to the many thousands of political prisoners held in Egypt’s prisons.” Fifty-six US law makers have asked President Biden to demand for his release.

“The last nine years of his life have been stolen from him.” Alaa Abd el-Fattah is indeed fighting with his only weapon: his body, his brain, his stance, his courage and through a hunger strike of over 60 days, he will not even take water as a form of demonstration. A dire protest on the opening of COP27 Global charade in Sharm El Sheikh for the world to finally wake-up and take a hard look at itself and at human realities in a real Egypt and not some delusional fantasy of imaginary pharaohs.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ibrahim Quraishi.

Abdelfattah, imprisoned since 2019, began a hunger strike in April of no more than 100 calories per day, which resulted in the severe deterioration of his health. In a November 1 letter to his family, Abdelfattah announced that he will go on a full hunger strike, and on November 6, coinciding with the beginning of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, he will stop drinking water, the joint letter said. 

The letter also includes calls to British authorities, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N. Special Procedures, government and business leaders, as well as civil society organizations, groups, and activists, to mobilize for Abdelfattah’s release. 

The full letter can be read here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Egyptian authorities have arrested hundreds in a crackdown on dissenting voices ahead of COP27, the U.N. climate conference which starts Sunday in Sharm El-Sheikh. Fifteen Nobel laureates have signed an open letter asking world leaders to pressure Egypt into releasing its many political prisoners, including human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who plans to intensify his six-month hunger strike by forgoing water on the opening day of the climate summit. “He’s organizing all of us from his prison cell,” says Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Fifteen Nobel Prize winners called on world leaders visiting Egypt next week for the United Nations’ COP27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh to demand freedom for political prisoners, “most urgently, the Egyptian-British writer and philosopher, Alaa Abd El Fattah, now six months into a hunger strike and at risk of death.”

In a letter sent on Wednesday to heads of state and climate envoys due to speak at the climate conference, the Nobel laureates urged them “to bring the voices of the unjustly imprisoned into the room,” by speaking their names and reading from Abd El Fattah’s writing.

Abd El Fattah, a jailed writer and activist whose calls for democratic change in Egypt have frightened four successive authoritarian governments into prosecuting him for just attending protests or posting critical comments online, has been on a “Gandhi-style” hunger strike since April, consuming only 100 calories a day. His activist sisters, Sanaa Seif and Mona Seif, revealed this week that he plans to stop drinking water on Sunday, when COP27 begins.

Alaa Abd El Fattah’s sisters, Mona Seif, left, and Sanaa Seif, right, with climate activists Greta Thunberg and Andreas Magnusson at sit-in outside the U.K. Foreign Office on Oct. 30, 2022, in London.

Photo: Hollie Adams/Getty Images

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Robert Mackey.

A growing global chorus of human rights organizations, Nobel Prize winners, and climate champions is calling on world leaders to pressure the Egyptian government to free dissident Alaa Abd el-Fattah—who is currently on a months-long hunger strike—and other political prisoners ahead of the COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, arguing that the fights for climate justice and democratic freedoms are inextricable.

In a letter to the head of the United Nations, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, and other key officials set to attend the climate talks starting Sunday, 15 Nobel Literature Prize winners demanded that the world leaders prioritize the "many thousands of political prisoners held in Egypt's prisons—most urgently, the Egyptian-British writer and philosopher, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, now six months into a hunger strike and at risk of death."

"Unless political freedoms are defended, there will be no meaningful climate action. Not in Egypt, nor anywhere else."

Last December, Abd el-Fattah was sentenced to five years in prison for spreading "false news" after he shared a Facebook post highlighting the torture of another prisoner.

"We urge you to use the opportunity that is now in your hands to help those most vulnerable, not just to the rising seas, but those imprisoned and forgotten—specifically in the very country that has the privilege of hosting you," the Nobel laureates wrote in their letter. "A just transition cannot solely be concerned with bringing down emissions, but must seek a re-construction of the status quo away from exploitation and coercion."

"If the world's leaders gather in Egypt and leave without even a word about the most vulnerable, then what hope can they have?" they added. "If COP27 ends up a silent gathering, where no one risks speaking openly for fear of angering the COP presidency, then what future is it that will be being negotiated over?"

The letter was sent after Abd el-Fattah informed his family in a letter that he intends to stop drinking water beginning November 6, the first day of the climate summit in a country whose government is notorious for repressing dissent.

"I have decided to escalate, at the appropriate time, my struggle for my freedom and the freedom of all prisoners," he wrote, sparking increasingly urgent calls for his immediate release.

In a social media post on Tuesday, author and climate advocate Naomi Klein asked, "If international solidarity is too weak to save Alaa, what hope do we have of saving a habitable home?"

"With the lights flickering in so many democracies around the world," Klein wrote in a column for The Intercept last month, "the message activists should bring to the climate summit, whether they travel to Egypt or engage from afar, is simple: Unless political freedoms are defended, there will be no meaningful climate action. Not in Egypt, nor anywhere else. These issues are intertwined, as are our fates."

Renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben similarly warned that the continued imprisonment of Abd el-Fattah "will make a mockery of the climate talks."

U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister RishiSunak "have the power to stop this," McKibben wrote on Twitter. "Intervene NOW."

Rights groups have been sounding the alarm for weeks over Egypt's crackdown on peaceful demonstrations ahead of the closely watched COP27 summit, a critical opportunity for world leaders to commit to more ambitious climate action as the devastating impacts of runaway warming become clearer by the day.

In a statement on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that "Egypt is hosting COP27 following years of intensifying restrictions on human rights and environmental groups in the country, amounting to one of the harshest government clampdowns in decades."

Richard Pearshouse, HRW's environment director, lamented that "before delegations have set foot in Egypt, authorities have already shown their true colors by clamping down on any Egyptian who dares to call attention to the dire human rights situation in the country."

"In the days ahead, countries should make good on longstanding promises to prevent the most devastating impacts of climate change," said Pearshouse. "At the same time, they should reaffirm to Egypt's government and other authoritarian administrations that independent environmental activism is indispensable for the robust climate policies the world so urgently needs."

"Governments attending COP27 have a responsibility to call out Egypt's rhetoric around tolerance and openness as what it is, empty and meaningless, and to urge Egyptian authorities to end rights restrictions," he added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The family of imprisoned Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah has been staging a sit-in outside the British foreign office to demand the government help release him. El-Fattah, who was recently granted British citizenship, has been on hunger strike for over 200 days to protest being held in harsh conditions during his seemingly endless jail sentence in Egypt. “We’re not sure how much time is left. We’re not sure how much his body can take,” says his sister, Sanaa Seif.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The family of imprisoned Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah has been staging a sit-in outside the British foreign office to demand the government help release him. El-Fattah, who was recently granted British citizenship, has been on hunger strike for over 200 days to protest being held in harsh conditions during his seemingly endless jail sentence in Egypt. “We’re not sure how much time is left. We’re not sure how much his body can take,” says his sister, Sanaa Seif.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The September 29 letter also calls on British authorities to intervene to secure the release of Abdelfattah, who obtained U.K. citizenship while in jail, noting that Abdelfattah’s health “has deteriorated to a critical and life-threatening point” following more than 180 days on hunger strike in protest over his conviction and harsh detention conditions.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

We speak with climate author and activist Bill McKibben, who is pushing for the climate movement to demand the release of Egyptian prisoner and human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah ahead of the next U.N. climate conference, which will be hosted in Egypt. McKibben says releasing El-Fattah to the U.K., which has agreed to house him, would be “the easiest of gestures” by Egypt, whose authoritarian leader met Saturday with President Biden. “The spread of authoritarian governments around the world is one of the things that’s making it difficult to deal with the existential challenge that climate change [presents],” says McKibben.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“President Biden’s stated priorities of security and stability are nearly impossible without an informed citizenry,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Factual, independent reporting touches people’s daily lives, keeping disinformation from sowing chaos and extremism. Too many journalists in the region are imprisoned or killed for probing the root causes of instability and for applying a critical lens that holds leaders to account. This must end. There is no better way to champion free and independent media than for the president to demand accountability in places where it is under threat.”

During this trip Biden is expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who, according to U.S. intelligence, was implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden will also meet with Israeli authorities who refuse to launch a criminal investigation into the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and with Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, whose government routinely imprisons journalists. Egypt was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s 2021 prison census.

CPJ reiterates previous calls on the Biden administration to immediately take these basic actions to defend journalists and press freedom:

• Grant the family of slain Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, their request to meet with the president during his trip. 
  
• Call for the immediate release of the dozens of journalists in Egypt and in Saudi Arabia, including Alaa Abdelfattah (Egypt), who has surpassed 100 days on a hunger strike. 
  
• Call on Saudi authorities to lift travel bans on formerly imprisoned journalists and dissidents, including Raif Badawi, and on Egypt to cease its post-release harassment of journalists such as Egyptian photojournalist and CPJ International Press Freedom Award honoree Mahmoud Abou Zeid (Shawkan), who is still being forced to spend  nights in police custody in spite of being released from prison on March 4, 2019.

The United States is a founding member of the Media Freedom Coalition, a grouping of 52 countries that have pledged to advocate for media freedom domestically and internationally. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Robert Mackey.

Now, his new book “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated,” a collection of Abdelfattah’s writings that includes essays, tweets, and those smuggled letters, has been translated from Arabic and published, offering English readers their first opportunity to read the thoughts and reporting of the journalist, who has been in custody since 2014.

Last month, Sanaa Seif, Abdelfattah’s sister, visited the U.S. to promote the book and advocate for her brother’s release. Seif sat down for an interview at CPJ’s headquarters in New York to discuss Abdelfattah’s book, hunger strike, and the injustices he and his family have been going through since his first arrest in 2011.

CPJ emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Interior, which oversees the police and prison system in Egypt, for comment, but did not receive any response. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you tell us about Alaa’s new book, “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated”? What significance does it have to English readers?

Alaa used to write for local independent news website Mada Masrand other newspapers when that was possible, and he continued writing while in prison. Recently, some family friends decided to collect his writings, including those smuggled from prison, translate them to English, and put them all in a book for the English reader.

The title of the book is “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated,” and “You” refers to the reader. The Egyptian uprising of 2011 was clearly defeated, and the way Alaa saw it, is that there is value in facing our defeat and learning from it, so a lot of his writings are about that. We think that our defeat could be an inspiration to others, especially to those who have not yet been defeated.

When I last visited Alaa in prison, he told me that he was very happy about this book getting published. The reason for him being in prison is to imprison his voice, so since the book is out, his voice is out too.

To what extent are you and your family in touch with Alaa?

Prison visits are allowed only once a month for 20 minutes, and only one person is allowed per visit through a telephone speaker and a glass wall, so we don’t hug Alaa. We don’t get much time with him, but it is always quality time with Alaa.

However, during the [COVID-19] pandemic, the only way we could get news of Alaa was through letters, and at some point, they [the authorities] decided to ban the letters too. One time, my mother, my sister, and I decided to stage a sit-in in front of the prison gate, demanding we get a letter from Alaa. We didn’t know whether he was fine or not, and we have been hearing very worrying news about him.

The next day, some civilian women with bricks and wooden sticks approached us while we waited and started beating us up and stole our stuff. I was badly injured, and all this happened while prison guards, whose job is to secure the prison, watched. Later, I found out that these women were sent by the police, and they had received orders to particularly humiliate me.

The next day, we went to the public prosecutors’ office to file an official complaint. There, they told me that they need to inspect my injuries, so I went with them while my family waited, only to find myself getting arrested. They took me directly to an emergency hearing where I was charged with spreading false news about the lack of COVID-19 precautions in prison and insulting public officials on duty, referring to the prison guards who were watching me getting beaten up. I was also charged with committing two terrorist crimes.

I was sentenced to one and a half years in prison after being convicted of spreading false news and insulting a public official. The terrorism charges did not go to court, and I am still facing them. They also made sure to tell me that they can use these terrorism charges against me to put me back in prison at any time.

Why do you continue your online advocacy for Alaa when it’s dangerous for you?

I was imprisoned three times, and there are different details for each time, but it all comes down to the fact that I won’t shut up about the injustices that my brother is facing. Each and every time I am released, I am always told that I can live my life peacefully only if I stop writing or talking about Alaa.

I don’t really have a choice but to continue talking about him. I would consider holding back if the other party was in any way reasonable, like if I had made a compromise — my brother would be out. But according to all the unofficial conversations they [the authorities] have had with me, it didn’t seem that any compromise would be enough to get Alaa out. It is clear they want to keep him in prison.

How would you describe Alaa’s prison conditions?  And can you tell us about his latest hunger strike?

From my personal experience, prison conditions have been deteriorating over the years. But for Alaa especially, the past three years were much worse than anything we have ever experienced.

He spent five years in prison before being out on probation, where he had to spend 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. in jail every day. But Alaa is always able to write if he has access to a pen and paper. For example, during the six months he was on probation, if he had an idea in his mind that he wanted to write about, he would collect all the material and study it before 6 p.m. and then write about it while in custody. Even then, state security officers repeatedly raided his jail cell inside the police station, blindfolded him, and threatened that he would go back to prison.

When Alaa was re-arrested after sharing the tweet that accuses officer Ahmed Fekry of killing a political prisoner in Tora maximum security prison, they placed Alaa in the same prison and under the authority of the same police officer [Fekry].

On his first day back in prison, they [the officers] did this thing called a “welcome party,” where they basically humiliated and tortured him. Ahmed Fekry was present. After that, they deprived him of his basic rights. Alaa is not allowed sunlight, fresh air, books, or even a paper or a pen, and when they allow him to send us a letter, they give him a pen and a paper and ask him to write to us on the spot, only to monitor what he writes.

Back in October 2021, Alaa was so fed up with being deprived of his rights and expressed suicidal thoughts, which is unlike him. But instead of giving up to that mental state, he decided to fight back and resist. Alaa started a hunger strike on April 2 to express how fed up he is with this nonsense.

[Editors’ note: CPJ cannot independently confirm any allegations of torture, but they are in line with Egyptian prisoners’ accounts. Abdelfattah described the “welcome party” in a 2019 article in Mada Masr. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior, which oversees the police and prison system in Egypt, did not return CPJ’s email request for comment on the allegations against Ahmed Fekry and the Tora prison officials.]

How has being in and out of prison for over a decade affected Alaa’s family?

When Alaa was released on probation, it was energizing for us, especially for his son, who’s about 12 years old today and has not seen his father much. But during his probation period, they managed to create a very strong and intimate relationship. During Alaa’s first five-year sentence, his boy was young, and for him, Alaa did not exist. So now, it is much harder on his son, who now knows who his father is and is being deprived of him.

For all of us, that time was very refreshing, especially the brief six hours that Alaa would split between all of us during the day before returning to the police station. I remember being surprised by how he can fit so well and so fast in our lives after being away for so long. I still remember the first moment he entered the house after his release. He had never seen my dog before, and they greeted each other so well as if they have known each other for a long time. It [his home] is just where he belongs!

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ MENA Staff.

Calls are growing for the release of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who launched a hunger strike on April 2 to protest the harsh conditions he is held under at Cairo’s Tora prison. Abd El-Fattah, who became a leading voice of the Arab Spring revolution, has been in and out of prison for nearly a decade for his human rights activism. His family recently obtained U.K. citizenship for him in the hopes of pressuring Egyptian authorities to release him, and they warn that his condition is rapidly deteriorating behind bars. We speak to his sister, Sanaa Seif, who was also imprisoned on similar charges of disseminating “false news” before being released in December. “Now is a critical time where it finally might be possible for Alaa to be free,” says Seif. “What keeps us going is that we as a family want to survive and want to unite in peace.” We also speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is joining Seif on a U.S. tour with Alaa’s new book, “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated.” As the pair advocate for Abd El-Fattah’s immediate release, they also discuss more recent government crackdowns on prominent Egyptian voices, such as TikTok influencer Haneen Hossam. “It seems that prison is the government’s answer to any problem with a citizen,” says Kouddous.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.