Probe ordered after freed activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s ‘abhorrent’ tweets come to mild
Yvette Cooper has ordered a Foreign Office review after ‘abhorrent’ social media posts by British-Egyptian national Alaa Abd El-Fattah were missed as the Government lobbied for his release
Yvette Cooper has ordered a review into “serious information failures” after “abhorrent” posts by freed activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah were missed.
The Foreign Secretary said successive senior politicians and civil servants were unaware of social media comments by Mr El-Fattah appearing to call for violence against Zionists and police. He arrived in the UK on Boxing Day after a travel ban was lifted following his release from prison.
Both Ms Cooper and PM Keir Starmer welcomed his arrival, back faced a backlash as tweets dating back to 2010 came to light. The Foreign Secretary said she has ordered a review into the matter.
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In a letter to Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, Ms Cooper said long-standing procedures and due diligence arrangements had been “completely inadequate” in the case. She said the Government viewed the tweets – which Mr El-Fattah has since apologised for – as “abhorrent.”
She wrote: “In the context of rising antisemitism, and recent horrific attacks against Jewish people in this country and around the world, I am deeply concerned that the unexpected emergence of these historical tweets – coming alongside the social media posts that I and other senior politicians sent on Boxing Day welcoming the conclusion of this long-running case and Mr El Fattah’s reunion with his family – have added to the distress felt by Jewish communities in the UK, and I very much regret that.
“I have asked the permanent under secretary as a matter of urgency to review the serious information failures in this case and more broadly the systems that are in place within the department for conducting due diligence on the individual high-profile consular and human-rights cases for which the FCDO is responsible, to ensure that those systems are functioning properly for the future, and that all necessary lessons are learned.”
Mr El-Fattah was granted UK citizenship in December 2021 when Boris Johnson was PM, reportedly through his British-born mother. The Tories and Reform UK have since called for his British citizenship to be stripped – though it is understood there are no current plans for this.
His imprisonment for charges of spreading false news was branded a breach of international law by UN investigators. He was pardoned by Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in September. Tory and Labour governments had pushed for his release, and he has now been reunited with his son, who lives in Brighton.
Mr El-Fattah has apologised, saying he understands “how shocking and hurtful” his previous comments were. In a statement, he said: “I unequivocally apologise.
“(The posts) were mostly expressions of a young 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 against Egyptian youth.
“I particularly regret some that were written as part of online insult battles with the total disregard for how they read to other people. I should have known better.”
No 10 defended the Government’s handling of the case amid calls from opposition critics for the activist to be deported.
“We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases and as we have done in the past,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters.
He continued: “That is central to Britain’s commitment to religious and political freedom. That said, it doesn’t change the fact that we have condemned the nature of these historic tweets and we consider them to be abhorrent, and we’ve been very clear about that.”
Officials within Government appear to believe there are no grounds for removing Mr Abd El-Fattah’s citizenship, as case law has established this can only be done in circumstances of fraud or against dangerous criminals and terrorists.
