The family of Egyptian pro-democracy advocate Alaa Abdel Fattah says that they received a “proof of life” letter from him, in which Fattah, who has been on a hunger strike for more than 220 days, said he has started drinking water again. 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.
The letter from Fattah to his family was dated Saturday and delivered on Monday.
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.