Tories and Labour face questions over support for activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah | UK news

The decision of successive UK governments to campaign for the release and return of British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd al-Fattah has been called into question after past violent and offensive social media posts came to light.

His historic remarks, in which he called for violence against opposition “Zionists” and police, have sparked widespread backlash since his return from Egyptian detention on Friday.

Keir Starmer faces criticism after We initially welcomed Abdul Fattah He returned to the UK and said his release was a “top priority” for the government, but it is understood the prime minister was unaware of the online posts at the time.

But Jewish organizations criticized the “enthusiastic” response and said the years-long campaign, supported by successive Labor and Conservative administrations, to secure the activist’s release showed a “lack of due diligence”.

Following the revelation of social media posts over the weekend, the UK Foreign Office condemned the “disgusting” comments about dual citizenship being granted British citizenship in 2021 by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “Mr El-Fattah is a British national. Releasing him from custody and seeing him reunited with his family in the UK has been a long-standing priority under successive governments. The government condemns the historic incident of Mr El-Fattah.”[al] He tweets and thinks these are disgusting.”

Both the Labor government and its Conservative predecessors are expected to come under pressure to explain why they are campaigning for the release of Abdel Fattah, who has a British-born mother, when his posts are already public.

Posts cost him a nomination He was nominated for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2014. The group supporting him withdrew their nomination for the human rights award, saying they discovered a 2012 tweet in which he called for the killing of Israelis.

In 2015, Abdel Fattah claimed that his comments were taken out of context and that, although “shocking” they may seem, they were part of a “private conversation” that took place during Israel’s attack on Gaza.

The decision to grant citizenship would be made by the Home Office, led by Priti Patel, who was then an advisor to the Foreign Office, where Liz Truss was foreign secretary and James Cleverly was regional minister.

Successive Conservative prime ministers have also called for Abdel Fattah to be released and reunited with his family, including Rishi Sunak. He said it was a “priority” for his government in November 2022.

When Labor came to power, Starmer continued to lobby the Egyptian president about Abdel Fattah, who remains in detention, and made three calls to his Egyptian counterpart; UK national security adviser Jonathan Powell also personally called on the Egyptians to end the detentions.

The campaign to free one of Egypt’s most prominent political prisoners has become a famous cause in the United Kingdom, where his mother, Laila Soueif, nearly died while on hunger strike over her detention.

Abdel Fattah finally arrived in London on Friday after Egypt lifted the travel ban it had imposed on him despite his release from prison in September. He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2021 for “spreading fake news” after sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country.

After the social media posts emerged, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick called for Abdel Fattah to be stripped of his dual citizenship and deported, adding that he should be “enabled to live in Egypt or frankly anywhere in the world”.

Writing to the prime minister about the activist’s comments welcoming his return to the UK, Jenrick said: “Given Mr Abdel Fattah’s extremist statements about violence, Jews and the police, this was a serious error of judgement. No one should be jailed arbitrarily or for peaceful dissent. But neither should the prime minister put the authority of his office behind someone whose own words are tinged with the language of racism and bloodshed.”

Nigel Farage also entered the fray, publishing on X on Sunday that he had reported Abdel Fattah to the counter-terrorism police for his remarks.

“While Robert Jenrick is right to criticize Starmer… we must not forget that it was the Tory government that started this… Labor is doing the same thing the Tories are doing, only worse,” the Reform UK leader said.

Many Conservative politicians who lobbied for Abdel Fattah’s release from prison said they now regretted their involvement in the campaign. Former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, who was among those pushing for Abdel Fattah’s return, called on police to investigate his comments.

Duncan Smith wrote on

Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, former chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said: “I trusted the process of granting Alaa citizenship and subsequently supported the campaign for his release. “I am deeply disappointed and frankly feel betrayed by supporting his cause, which I now regret.

“The detention of British citizens by foreign states without due process is completely inappropriate, but Alaa must apologize and make clear that he now fully rejects the hatred and antisemitism he expressed, which is completely incompatible with British values.”

The democracy activist was a leading voice in Egypt’s 2011 Arab spring uprising and went on a hunger strike behind bars. His imprisonment was described by UN investigators as a violation of international law. He was eventually released after being pardoned by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it had raised concerns with the UK government about Abdel Fattah’s statements and said there was an “urgent need” to find out whether he still held the views expressed online.

The panel said: “The social media history revealed by Alaa Abd al-Fattah is deeply worrying. His previous extremist and violent rhetoric targeting ‘Zionists’ and white people generally threatens British Jews and the wider public.”

“The cross-party campaign and the government’s warm welcome for such a person reveals a broken system with a surprising lack of due diligence by the authorities.”

Tom Rutland, the Labor MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, wrote: “I can’t understand why it has become a priority for successive governments to bring this man in. What kind of scrutiny is routinely carried out in these cases? His tweets are impressive for how they have managed to be disgraced in such a variety of ways.”