Granted UK citizenship in 2021, Mr Abd El-Fattah is going through requires his deportation, and even for his citizenship to be revoked.
The British-Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah (centre) at house after his launch in September
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However who’s Alaa Abd El-Fattah? Why was he in prison in Egypt, and what’s he accused of claiming? And might the UK strip somebody’s citizenship?
Who’s Alaa Abd El-Fattah?
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was a number one voice in Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring rebellion and went on starvation strikes behind bars.
He has been questioned, arrested, and detained on a number of events, spending most of his time since 2011 in jail.
Born in 1981, he was raised in a household of well-known political activists, with each of his dad and mom members of a small, vocal group of Egyptian intellectuals who had lengthy spoken out in opposition to oppressive governments.
Mr Abd el-Fattah’s first style of activism got here in 2005, when he broke his arm defending his mom and different ladies throughout protests in opposition to alleged election-rigging by the federal government of Hosni Mubarak.
By 2011, when individuals throughout the Center East rose up in opposition to their leaders within the Arab spring, Mr Abd el-Fattah was one of many leaders of Egypt’s revolution, and he additionally challenged the interim navy regime after Mubarak was deposed.
Why was he in jail in Egypt?
He was most lately detained in September 2019 by the Nationwide Safety Company and brought to State Safety Prosecution on unknown expenses.
He was later convicted of spreading false information and jailed in December 2021.
Regardless of his household’s claims that his sentence ought to have resulted in September 2024, the Egyptian authorities refused to free him, stating that his launch date had been pushed to January 2027.
The UN branded his imprisonment a breach of worldwide regulation, and each Conservative and Labour governments lobbied for his launch.
Following starvation strikes by Mr Abd El-Fattah and his mom, who was protesting for his launch, he was launched from jail on 22 September 2025.
Twin-national Alaa Abd El-Fattah was lately launched from years of detention in Egypt (PA)
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He was pardoned together with 5 different prisoners by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
On Boxing Day, following the lifting of a journey ban, Mr Abd El-Fattah flew to the UK to reunite together with his younger son, who lives in Brighton.
Upon his arrival within the UK, Mr Abd El-Fattah has turn out to be the topic of controversy over his previous social media posts.
Messages have resurfaced which seem to indicate him calling for Zionists and police to be killed.
In a tweet from 2012, he seems to say: “I’m a racist, I do not like white individuals”, whereas in one other he says that police don’t have rights and “we must always kill all of them”.
In one other submit, he says he considers “killing any colonialists and specifically Zionists heroic, we have to kill extra of them”.
Now, Mr Abd El-Fattah has apologised “unequivocally” for his previous phrases.
He mentioned: “I do perceive how stunning and hurtful they’re, and for that I unequivocally apologise.
“I’m shaken that, simply as I’m being reunited with my household for the primary time in 12 years, a number of historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to query and assault my integrity and values, escalating to requires the revocation of my citizenship.”
He added: “They had been principally expressions of a younger man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises, 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 entire disregard for a way they learn to different individuals. I ought to have identified higher.”
What have the politicians mentioned?
Sir Keir Starmer initially welcomed Mr Abd El-Fattah’s return to Britain, though No10 has mentioned he was unaware of the historic messages on the time.
Starmer had lobbied for Mr Abd El-Fattah’s launch, stating that the case had been a prime precedence for his authorities upon taking workplace.
The Overseas Workplace mentioned that whereas it had been a long-standing precedence below successive governments to work for his launch, they condemned his posts as abhorrent.
Each Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have referred to as on House Secretary Shabana Mahmood to have a look at whether or not Mr Abd El-Fattah’s citizenship may very well be revoked.
Badenoch referred to as the reported feedback anti-British, and mentioned that citizenship selections should take account of social media exercise, public statements, and patterns of perception.
Conservative Occasion chief Kemi Badenoch described Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s feedback as ‘disgusting and vile’ (Ben Whitley/PA)
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Ms Badenoch mentioned: “It’s one factor to work for somebody’s launch from jail if they have been handled unfairly as earlier governments did. It’s fairly one other to raise them, publicly and uncritically, into an ethical hero.”
Mr Farage mentioned in a letter to Mahmood: “It ought to go with out saying that anybody who possesses racist and anti-British views corresponding to these of Mr El-Fattah shouldn’t be allowed into the UK.
He additionally mentioned it was astonishing that MPs from successive governments failed to hold out “primary due diligence” on Mr Abd El-Fattah whereas campaigning for his launch.
Can the UK strip somebody’s citizenship?
Mr Abd El-Fattah was granted UK citizenship in December 2021 below Boris Johnson by means of his mom, who was born in London.
Shadow house secretary Chris Philp, who was immigration minister on the time, has mentioned he didn’t know of the messages in 2021, however that he was now clear that “this man ought to have his citizenship revoked”.
Talking to BBC Radio 4’s In the present day programme, Philp mentioned: “There isn’t a excuse for that form of language.
Shadow house secretary Chris Philp mentioned Mr Abd El-Fattah’s apology was ‘insincere’ (Lucy North/PA)
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“Individuals who categorical that form of hatred, that form of anti-white racism, that form of extremism who search to incite violence, haven’t any place in the UK.”
Nonetheless, Dame Emily Thornberry, chair of the Commons overseas affairs committee, mentioned that the concept of revoking his citizenship was not primarily based in regulation.
“The underside and prime of it’s that he’s a British citizen,” she mentioned
As per the British Nationality Act 1981, the House Secretary has the facility to remove an individual’s British citizenship in the event that they contemplate it conducive to the general public good, or if the particular person obtained their citizenship by fraud.
Depriving somebody of their British citizenship for the general public good is mostly used within the context of nationwide safety or counter-terrorism.
The purpose is to forestall an individual who poses a menace to the UK from returning to the nation, which they’d in any other case have a proper to do as a British citizen.
Shamima Begum had her citizenship revoked on nationwide safety grounds when she joined ISIS, stopping her return to the UK.
For individuals who have naturalised as British, citizenship deprivation is permitted even when it could go away them stateless – nevertheless, the UK has duties below worldwide regulation to keep away from leaving individuals stateless, and British citizenship can solely be stripped from somebody eligible to use for citizenship abroad.
