UK ministers accused of ‘embarrassing failures’ in Abd el-Fattah case | Home Office
Emily Thornberry said the government could have avoided “shameful failures” in the Alaa Abd al-Fattah case by striking a special envoy deal with complex cases involving Britons detained abroad.
The chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee criticized “serious shortcomings” in information sharing and said it could be addressed by a special officer carrying out background checks.
Former foreign secretary David Lammy said that in 2024 the government would appoint an envoy to deal with “complex detention cases” involving Britons abroad, but no such figure was specified.
In his letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Thornberry said: [in 2024] …in my view, such embarrassing failures in due diligence and information sharing could have been avoided.
“It would certainly be within the ambassador’s purview to conduct appropriate background and social media checks.”
Abdel Fattah, who was at the eye of the storm for social media comments he made more than a decade ago, returned to the UK the next day after being pardoned and released in Egypt.
The 44-year-old activist was granted British citizenship in 2021 by the Conservative government led by Boris Johnson. Successive UK governments have campaigned for his release.
In the days since Abdel Fattah’s return, comments dating back to 2010 have emerged on social media in which he said that Zionists, colonialists and police officers should be killed and that British people were “dogs and monkeys”.
He “absolutely” apologized for his tweets earlier this week. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who initially said he was “delighted” to have the activist back in the UK, later condemned the tweets and said he was unaware of them.
Conservatives and Reform UK have proposed that Abdel Fattah be deported from the UK and his British citizenship revoked.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow home secretary who has led calls for Abdel Fattah’s British citizenship to be revoked and deported, drew attention to social media posts on Wednesday reportedly belonging to his sister Mona Seif, in which he referred to Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel in October 2023 as “imaginary”.
The post stated that images of Hamas militants paragliding into Israel were like “something out of a sci-fi movie” and continued: “I guess it takes a special kind of imagination to find new ways to resist a highly advanced occupation army whose war crimes are constantly legitimized and sanctioned by some of the most powerful governments!”
Comment published on X on October 7, 2023 at 10:57 am. Twenty-one minutes later, another post read: “The difference between many of those who celebrated the Ukrainian resistance but now condemn the Palestinian resistance once again speaks loudly of their hypocrisy.
“The people either have the right to resist the army occupation or they don’t! It can’t be ‘only for those who look like me’.”
In other comments that emerged this week, Abdel Fattah asked: “Who would cry if we killed Osama Saraya?”, referring to the editor of an Egyptian newspaper that supported dictator Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted from power in the Arab Spring in 2011. he asked.
In a 2010 tweet, Abdel Fattah appeared to joke about a “suicide attack that killed several Zionists.”
Cooper launched an investigation into “serious information errors” in the Abdülfettah case.
Government sources say the Ministry of Internal Affairs will not strip him of his citizenship because his past social media posts do not meet the legal criteria for such a sanction.
Human rights activists said such a sentence would be a “highly authoritarian step”.
