Yvette Cooper has ordered an pressing Overseas Workplace evaluate of “severe info failures” within the case of a freed British-Egyptian activist.
“Abhorrent” social media posts by Alaa Abd El-Fattah emerged after he returned to the UK on Boxing Day following a number of years of imprisonment in Egypt.
Ms Cooper, the overseas secretary, stated successive prime ministers weren’t briefed on the historic tweets, which date again so far as 2010, and civil servants in command of the case had been additionally “unaware” of them.
The activist has since apologised “unequivocally” for his “surprising and hurtful” social media posts, through which he seems to name for violence in opposition to “Zionists” – however stated some had been “fully twisted”.
Each the Conservatives and Reform UK have urged he ought to have his British citizenship stripped for the posts – although it’s understood there aren’t any present plans for this, and the legislation doesn’t seem to offer grounds to deport him.
In a letter to the chair of the Overseas Affairs Committee, Dame Emily Thornberry, Ms Cooper stated long-standing procedures and due diligence preparations had been “fully insufficient” within the case.
“Within the context of rising antisemitism, and up to date horrific assaults in opposition to Jewish folks on this nation and all over the world, I’m deeply involved that the surprising emergence of those historic tweets – coming alongside the social media posts that I and different senior politicians despatched on Boxing Day welcoming the conclusion of this long-running case and Mr El Fattah’s reunion along with his household – have added to the misery felt by Jewish communities within the UK, and I very a lot remorse that,” she wrote.
“I’ve requested the everlasting beneath secretary as a matter of urgency to evaluate the intense info failures on this case and extra broadly the programs which might be in place throughout the division for conducting due diligence on the person high-profile consular and human-rights circumstances for which the FCDO is accountable, to make sure that these programs are functioning correctly for the long run, and that every one vital classes are realized.”
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Alaa Abd El-Fattah was pardoned in September 2025. Pic: AP
Mr Abd El-Fattah was a number one voice throughout Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring rebellion and went on starvation strikes in jail.
He was most lately detained in September 2019 and sentenced to 5 years in jail in December 2021 on prices of spreading false information.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi pardoned the activist earlier this yr and he flew to the UK to reunite along with his younger son, who lives in Brighton, final week.
He had been granted UK citizenship in December 2021 beneath Boris Johnson, reportedly by means of his UK-born mom.
Mr Abd El-Fattah along with his sister after his launch from jail. Pic: Twitter/@monasosh
No 10 has defended the federal government’s dealing with of the case, with the prime minister’s official spokesperson saying: “We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained overseas, as we might in all circumstances and as we now have executed up to now.
“That’s central to Britain’s dedication to spiritual and political freedom. That stated, it would not change the truth that we now have condemned the character of those historic tweets and we think about them to be abhorrent, and we have been very clear about that.”
In a press release, Mr Abd El-Fattah stated: “I unequivocally apologise.
“(The posts) had been largely expressions of a younger man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises (the wars on Iraq, on Lebanon and Gaza), and the rise of police brutality in opposition to Egyptian youth.
“I significantly remorse some that had been written as a part of on-line insult battles with the overall disregard for the way they learn to different folks. I ought to have identified higher.”
