exert – Radio Free https://www.radiofree.org Independent Media for People, Not Profits. Thu, 22 May 2025 17:31:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.radiofree.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/cropped-Radio-Free-Social-Icon-2-32x32.png exert – Radio Free https://www.radiofree.org 32 32 141331581 CPJ, others call on UK prime minister to exert diplomatic pressure to secure writer Alaa Abdelfattah’s release https://www.radiofree.org/2025/05/22/cpj-others-call-on-uk-prime-minister-to-exert-diplomatic-pressure-to-secure-writer-alaa-abdelfattahs-release/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/05/22/cpj-others-call-on-uk-prime-minister-to-exert-diplomatic-pressure-to-secure-writer-alaa-abdelfattahs-release/#respond Thu, 22 May 2025 17:31:51 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=481837 In a joint letter, the Committee to Protect Journalists and 31 other press freedom and human rights organizations urged UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to intensify his diplomatic efforts to secure Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abdelfattah’s release. The letter follows a February call between Starmer and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which has yet to yield any progress in Abdelfattah’s case.

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.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/05/22/cpj-others-call-on-uk-prime-minister-to-exert-diplomatic-pressure-to-secure-writer-alaa-abdelfattahs-release/feed/ 0 534380