He went on: “But the UK Government did not protect me from this abuse. The UAE, like Egypt, is a deeply authoritarian state and seen as a British ally. As a result our government continues to prioritise economic and security ties over the rights of British citizens and respect for the UK’s standing.”
Mr Hedges complained about how long it took for the British Embassy “to secure their first visit to see me” and that by then he had been forced to sign a false confession. Mr Hedges writes: “Meanwhile, the FCDO wrongly informed my wife that the best way was to stay quiet and let them solve the issue discreetly, maintaining this advice even after the UAE Government published its false accusations against me.”
Mr Abd el-Fattah remains one of Egypt’s most prominent political prisoners. He gained british citizenship last year through his mother but was nevertheless jailed for a further five years over a facebook post condemning torture.
His family have petitioned the prime minister Rishi Sunak to intervene. But Mr Hedges complained that the Government had still to secure consular access to visit him. Mr Sunak was under pressure to raise the case when visiting Sharm el-Sheikh at the start of the Cop-27 climate summit.
We need to overhaul the way the Foreign Office deals with Britons held as political prisoners
The news that Alaa Abd el-Fattah – Egypt’s most high-profile political prisoner – was alive, after a week in which he was on water strike, came as a huge relief. But the fact that he came so close to dying, after more than 200 days on hunger strike, and still remains imprisoned for the “crime” of sharing a Facebook post, is yet another blow to his family and those campaigning on his behalf, writes Matthew Hedges.
Alaa is a British citizen, and so his family have repeatedly petitioned the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to intervene forcefully and publicly on his behalf. The conditions he was held in for years before a recent prison transfer undoubtedly amounted to torture, and the United Nations is unequivocal in judging his detention arbitrary and unfair – but the government has yet to even secure consular access to him. Worse, just days after the Prime Minister’s visit to COP27, it seems Alaa almost died in prison.
I can attest to the nightmare that Alaa is in and the frustration his family faces with the government. In 2018 I was jailed, abused and tortured in the UAE over a period of seven months, and charged with espionage for Britain. I was held in solitary confinement and fed a cocktail of stimulants and tranquilisers throughout regular 15-hour interrogations. The experience has opened many personal wounds.
As in the case of Alaa, the security agencies who were terrorising me are well known for their systematic abuse and torture. But the UK Government did not protect me from this abuse. The UAE, like Egypt, is a deeply authoritarian state and seen as a British ally. As a result our government continues to prioritize economic and security ties over the rights of British citizens and respect for the UK’s standing.
It took two months for the British Embassy to secure their first visit to see me, by which time I had already been forced to sign a confession. Meanwhile, the FCDO wrongly informed my wife that the best way was to stay quiet and let them solve the issue discreetly, maintaining this advice even after the UAE Government published its false accusations against me.
In reality, it was only after my wife made a vocal public plea, months into my ordeal, that government ministers were forced to face up to the inhumane cruelty of the Emirati case against me. When an Abu Dhabi security “court” sentenced me to life imprisonment after a session that lasted just a few minutes and where I could not speak, the Foreign Office finally took a stand. Then Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt publicly stated that my case would have “repercussions” for the UK/UAE bilateral relationship. The results were immediate – within 24 hours I was pardoned and was put on a plane to London.
Ever since then I have been slowly recovering with the support of family and friends. The UK government has not provided any support. Indeed, a senior Foreign Office official even questioned why I had signed a false confession. With such a lack of empathy, it is little surprise that the UK government struggles to protect its citizens.
Alaa has been in prison for most of the past decade, persecuted by the Egyptian regime because he dared to make the case for a better world. He has almost entirely missed seeing his 11 year old son grow up. In this context, you would expect the British stance to be at least as strong as it (belatedly) was in my case – particularly as the embassy still hasn’t succeeded in getting access to Alaa in prison. How can the UK Government understand his conditions if they have not even been able to secure a face-to-face meeting? In London, the Egyptian ambassador to the U.K. is still doing his job as if everything was normal. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy is right when he says that situation should be reviewed urgently.
Meanwhile, British politicians keep “raising” Alaa’s case, but it is obvious that it is simply one item on their bilateral agenda with Egypt – as if the blocking of our government’s ability to see a British citizen, whose life is at acute risk, is a lower priority than pursuing economic projects. Former British Ambassador to Egypt John Casson has rightly called for Alaa to be “the defining issue in our relationship with Egypt”.
As a result of my own experiences, I am part of a group of several former British detainees calling for an overhaul of the way the Foreign Office deals with cases like mine and Alaa’s. I have directed the parliamentary ombudsman to investigate the government’s handling of my case, while the struggle of Richard Ratcliffe to get his wife Nazanin’s case taken seriously is well-known. It remains a national scandal that it took so long for her to be freed. The FCDO needs to start demonstrating that the safety and wellbeing of its citizens are a genuine priority. It can start by laying out in public what the repercussions will be for its relationship with Egypt if there is no rapid, concrete progress on the gross injustice of Alaa Abd el Fattah’s case. In parallel, there is an urgent need for an independent review of how consular cases are handled, to stop people like Alaa and me being failed so badly in the future.
