Sharm El-Sheikh -

French President Emmanuel Macron revealed that his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi pledged to preserve the health of activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been imprisoned since 2014, and his family announced a hunger and drink strike two days ago.

This came in a press conference held by Macron on the sidelines of the Climate Summit in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, after his meeting with Sisi yesterday evening.

Macron said during the press conference that he had spoken with Sisi about a number of individual cases that are considered sensitive and in a fragile situation, including the case of Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has completely stopped eating and drinking, according to the French BFM television network.

The French president added: I say this with great caution, but I hope that the next few weeks and months will allow the possibility of obtaining results, stressing that he received a pledge from the Egyptian president to preserve the health of Alaa Abdel Fattah.

In the same context, the French presidency announced that Macron had explicitly asked Sisi to release Alaa Abdel Fattah, according to the same source.

For its part, the Egyptian presidency issued a statement on the meeting of Sisi and Macron, but the statement did not address any statements related to discussing the issue of Alaa Abdel Fattah.

On Sunday, Abdel Fattah escalated his hunger strike, which he started seven months ago, by abstaining from drinking water coinciding with the start of the COP 27 climate conference in Egypt, according to his sister, Sana Abdel Fattah.

Since declaring a total hunger and water strike, human rights demands have escalated over Abdel Fattah, in conjunction with the Climate Conference.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said today, Tuesday, that the life of Alaa Abdel-Fattah, the hunger striker in prison, is in grave danger, and renewed Egypt's call for his immediate release.

"Abdel-Fattah is in great danger, his hunger strike puts his life in grave danger," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - at a press conference in Geneva - adding that Turk personally spoke to the Egyptian authorities last Friday and urged them to release him.

For her part, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, warned Cairo - during a press conference the day before yesterday, Sunday - that "there is not much time left, 72 hours at most, for his release, if (the Egyptian authorities) do not do so, his death will be in every COP27 discussions.

British priority

In a letter he sent to Sana, the sister of Alaa Abdel-Fattah, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had previously confirmed that Alaa "remains a priority for the British government as a defender of human rights and a British citizen."

Sanaa Seif arrived in Sharm El-Sheikh as a British citizen, to participate in the pressure for the release of her brother, after she organized for days an open sit-in in front of the British government headquarters in London.

Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urged Cairo to release political prisoners, and in a phone call with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, Blinken confirmed that cooperation between Cairo and Washington "has been enhanced by tangible progress in the field of human rights," according to a statement by the US State Department.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said last Wednesday that the United States is closely following Abdel-Fattah's case, adding to the press, "We have reiterated to the Egyptian government our concerns about this case and the conditions of his detention."

Ahead of the summit, 15 Nobel laureates sent an open letter calling on governments, environmental groups and businesses to press for the Egyptian government's release of thousands of political detainees before and during the global climate conference.

Twelve Egyptian human rights organizations also launched an electronic petition to collect the signatures of the largest number of solidarity activists in order to press for the opening of civil space and the release of all arbitrarily detained persons in the country.

It is noteworthy that Alaa Abdel-Fattah is one of the most prominent activists of the January 2011 revolution, and was sentenced in 2014 to 5 years in prison after being convicted of gathering and participating in an unauthorized protest. He was also arrested in 2019 and sentenced to another 5 years in prison for joining a terrorist group and spreading false news.

Abdel-Fattah obtained British citizenship earlier this year, as his mother is a British citizen.