What are Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s past social media posts and why is there a backlash? | Activism
What did Abdülfettah say and when?
Many of the social media posts in question were written about X between 2010 and 2012, during the Arab spring, when the British-Egyptian democracy activist turned 30. The tweets showed Abdel Fattah calling for violence against Zionists and police.
In posts, many of which appear to have been deleted and could not immediately be verified, he called the killings of Zionists heroic and added “we need to kill more of them.” He is accused of allegedly telling police in 2011, “they have no rights, we should kill them all.” He also once described the British as dogs and monkeys.
Screenshots posted online show him during the London riots on 8 August 2011: “Go burn the city or the lower street or police the fools.” A year later he posted: “By the way I’m a racist, I don’t like white people so I get angry.”
What has he said since then?
In a lengthy statement released early Monday, Abdel Fattah apologized, saying he understood “how shocking and hurtful” his past comments were.
“These were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations at a time of regional crises (the Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza wars) and increased police violence against Egyptian youth. I particularly regret that some of them were written as part of online insult wars, with no regard for how they read to other people. I should have known better,” he said.
He said some of the tweets were “completely misunderstood, apparently malicious” and “distorted from their meaning”.
Were politicians aware of these posts?
They say no.
A No 10 source said Keir Starmer, his deputy and the foreign secretary were unaware of Abdel Fattah’s past comments, which the government condemned as “disgusting”.
Conservative MPs such as former party leader Iain Duncan Smith and former foreign affairs select committee chair Alicia Kearns said they, too, were unaware of Abdel Fattah’s posts and regretted lobbying for his release.
However, this is not the first time Abdul Fattah’s comments on social media have sparked controversy. His tweets in 2014 cost him a nomination for the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize. The group supporting him withdrew his nomination for the human rights award, saying they discovered a 2012 tweet calling for the killing of Israelis. In 2015, Abdul Fattah claimed that his comments were taken out of context.
Conservative and Labor governments have since campaigned for his release from Egyptian prison, admitting he was wrongfully detained.
Who called for the cancellation of Abdülfettah’s citizenship?
Senior Conservative and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called for Abdel Fattah to be stripped of his British citizenship and deported. Abd al-Fattah was granted British citizenship by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in 2021 under an immigration law that allows mothers to pass on UK citizenship to their children even if they are outside the UK.
On Monday, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said home secretary Shabana Mahmood should look at whether Abdel Fattah’s “citizenship can be revoked and removed from Britain”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that Mahmood should sign an order revoking his citizenship “under the Immigration Act 1971 on the grounds that it is not in the public interest”.
But Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that Philp’s ideas were “not based in law”.
“Section six of the Immigration Act specifically says this does not apply to Britons,” he said in response to Philp’s comments. “According to the law, you can’t take away people’s citizenship by will in this way. You can only take away someone’s citizenship if they have dual citizenship and pose a threat to national security. I don’t think Chris Philp can tell us an example of someone who sent a tweet 15 years ago and it was seen as a threat to national security.”
Are the police involved?
On Sunday, Nigel Farage said he had reported Abdel Fattah to counter-terrorism police.
A counter-terrorism police spokesman said on Monday: “We have received a number of public referrals in recent days regarding various historic social media posts. As with all such referrals, these posts are currently in the process of being assessed by specialist officers within the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU).”
“If any potential offenses are identified, depending on the nature of the offences, the CTIRU will either refer the matter to the relevant investigation team within the counter-terrorism police or the relevant local police force for consideration for further investigation.”
