UK-Egypt relationship ‘not shaken’ by decision to detain British-Egyptian writer

Egyptian authorities detained Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a 42-year-old British-Egyptian, in 2019.

Mona Seif, the sister of British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah (Jordan Pettitt/PA) (PA Archive)

Britain’s “flourishing relationships” with Egypt have “enraged” the sister of a pro-democracy writer jailed since 2019, she has said.

Mona Seif warned that David Lammy risked adopting a doctrine which previously “got us nowhere” at a press conference on Thursday, held days before her brother Alaa Abd El-Fattah marks five years in prison on September 29.

Egyptian authorities detained Mr Abd El-Fattah, a 42-year-old British-Egyptian, on September 29 2019, and in December 2021, he was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spreading false news.

Every day is a really, really hurtful and painful burden on Alaa and our family

Mona Seif

Ms Seif and her sister Sanaa shared their hopes that their brother will be freed on the weekend, and that they would meet with Mr Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, to discuss the case.

“I think the previous Tory government and the prime minister and the series of foreign secretaries we met with, I honestly think they did not have the will and they did not put this as a priority, and they did not want to rattle any relationship,” Ms Seif told journalists in London.

“The previous government made it obvious that this is not a priority – they don’t care. It is up to the Labour right now to change this and make it known to all governments… that this is a priority and that this will affect diplomatic and business relationships.

“If they don’t do this, then they are failing us.”

The human rights campaigner added: “Until now, while I do know David Lammy has been… our agreed advocate and our champion, I am sadly waiting for him, we are all waiting for him, to see a shift in the approach. Right now they are making the same soft diplomacy approach that had been adopted by the Tory government (which) got us nowhere.”

Mr Lammy while in opposition pressed the previous government on its handling of the case.

“Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a British citizen and courageous voice for democracy in Egypt, has spent years in prison for the crime of sharing a Facebook post,” he wrote on Twitter in 2022.

“For too long, the government’s diplomacy has been weak,” Mr Lammy told the Commons the same year.

Now-shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell replied that former prime minister Rishi Sunak “made a particular point of making representations to his opposite number in Egypt, and I very much hope that those representations will be heard”.

Asked how she felt about the previous government having pursued “a platform for further trade liberalisation” between the UK and Egypt in 2020, while her brother was in prison, Ms Seif told the PA news agency: “Enraged. And enraged still.

“And not just signing trade agreements with Egypt but if you follow the social media accounts of the British ambassador to Egypt you will find him constantly promoting for new ventures between the UK and Egypt.

“And I was kind of hoping that the Labour Party would change this approach, but it has not happened ’til now.

“Of course everyone’s kind-of and we tell ourselves it’s only a new Government. They haven’t kind-of, they are still figuring it out, but I think most of them do not recognise that a new Government or not, Lammy has been in office for 80 days or more.

“Every day is a really, really hurtful and painful burden on Alaa and our family.

“And you can’t ask a prisoner to suck it up and, you know, give the Government time.”

Ms Seif warned Cairo “will use current context” including conflict in Gaza and Lebanon “to their advantage” in discussions with the UK, as a result of its proximity to the Middle East.

She said: “The continuing flourishing relationships with Egypt enrage me every day because I feel that they are enforcing the real message that they are sending, so asking about Alaa is just a checklist, but the reality is Egypt’s relationship is not altered or shaken a bit by the violations committed against my brother.”