Nobel laureates, activists call for release of Egyptian-UK prisoner

Nobel prize winners and leading activists called on Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to release British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Fifty people, including Nobel laureates Narges Mohammadi and Orhan Pamuk, signed the letter, the rights watchdog said Tuesday.

They requested that Sisi “grant clemency” to the 43-year-old writer and human rights defender, whose mother Laila Soueif has been on hunger strike for 156 days.

The signatories also included authors Arundhati Roy and Elif Shafak, as well as representatives from rights groups Reporters Without Borders, PEN International and Human Rights Watch.

“A presidential pardon is not just justice; it is an act of humanity. Let history remember not a tragedy, but a reunion: Alaa free, holding his son, and Laila Soueif breaking her fast with the family she so longs to be with,” the letter said.

Abdel Fattah, 43, was a leading voice in Egypt’s 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2019 for “spreading false news” after posting on Facebook about alleged torture in Egyptian jails.

Soueif, 68, has been on hunger strike since September, when her son was meant to be released.

According to her family, she remains hospitalised in London due to dangerously low blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

She has accepted two life-saving glucose drips since Friday, when UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pressed for Abdel Fattah’s release in a call with Sisi.

“I am accepting more glucose drip to give some time to secure Alaa’s release,” she said Monday in a statement shared by her family, saying she was “cautiously optimistic” after Starmer’s intervention.

In 2022, Sisi restarted a presidential pardons committee which has released a number of high-profile political prisoners, including Abdel Fattah’s lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer.