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Imprisoned Egyptian Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah Granted UK Citizenship
Alaa Abdel Fattah in Cairo's Tahrir Square in June 2011, during the revolution that led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. (Lilian Wagfy via Wikimedia Commons)

Imprisoned Egyptian Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah Granted UK Citizenship

An Egyptian pro-democracy advocate who has been in prison in Egypt on and off for most of the last decade has been granted a British passport. The family of Alaa Abdel Fattah, who was a leader in the 2011 revolution that led to the deposing of Hosni Mubarak, made the announcement that he had obtained British citizenship on Monday in a move that appears to be designed to pressure Egyptian authorities to release him. Abdel Fattah, 40, was sentenced again 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, Abdel-Fattah’s family and his Egyptian lawyers accused prison authorities in Cairo’s Tora Prison of torturing him and denying him basic legal rights; he began a hunger strike earlier this month to protest the alleged violations against him. Abdel Fattah obtained British citizenship through his mother, Laila Soueif, a math professor at Cairo University who was born in London.

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