Egyptian Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah Tells Family He Broke Hunger Strike
Egyptian pro-democracy advocate Alaa Abdel Fattah told his family in a new letter that he has broken his seven-month-long hunger strike. The letter was dated Monday and addressed to his mother.
His sister said in a tweet that Fattah said in the letter that he wants to celebrate his birthday with his mother when she is permitted to visit him on Thursday. “Bring a cake, normal provisions, I’ve broken my strike. I’ll explain everything on Thursday,” the letter said according to the tweet.
The letter comes a day after the family received a “proof of life” letter from Fatah dated Saturday.
Officials at Wadi al-Natroun prison, north of Cairo, where Fattah is being held said last week that he had undergone an unspecified “medical intervention with the knowledge of a judicial authority.” Fattah’s attorney was prevented from meeting with him twice in the last week, and British consular officials have been prevented from visiting him for months.
Fattah spent some 200 days on a hunger strike to protest his continued detention and conditions in prison, during which he consumed 100 calories a day in the form of a spoon of honey and a drop of milk in tea. He went on a full hunger strike, when he stopped drinking water, on November 6 to coincide with the opening day of the COP27 United Nations climate change summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. Several world leaders have raised the Fattah’s case with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during the climate conference. Egypt has been accused of hiding behind the conference to cover up its poor human rights record.
Fattah, a leader in the 2011 revolution that led to the deposing of Hosni Mubarak, was sentenced in December – after spending nearly three years in pre-trial detention – to five years in prison, on charges of “spreading false news undermining national security.” Last year, Fattah’s family and his Egyptian lawyers accused prison authorities in Cairo’s Tora Prison of torturing him and denying him basic legal rights.
