Alaa Abd El Fattah Is Alive, His Household Says

CAIRO — After greater than per week of silence, uncertainty and escalating controversy, the household of Egypt’s best-known political prisoner mentioned it had acquired phrase from him on Monday that he was alive after about seven months on starvation strike and a number of other days of refusing water.

Alaa Abd El Fattah, a dissident who has been jailed for a lot of the previous 9 years for his outspoken criticism of Egypt’s authorities, stopped ingesting water on Nov. 6 — the day the United Nations local weather summit started in Egypt — as a way of pressuring the authorities to launch him. Since then, his household mentioned it had not acquired proof he was alive.

That was till Monday, when his mom got here to the jail the place he’s being held and was given a word in what his household mentioned was his handwriting.

“I’m positive you’re apprehensive about me,” he wrote in a quick letter dated Nov. 12, based on Ahdaf Soueif, his aunt, who posted its contents on Twitter. “At the moment (Saturday), I started ingesting water, my vitals are good, and I’m receiving medical care. I miss you a large number and I like you a large number.”

He didn’t clarify why he had begun ingesting water once more or what sort of medical care he was receiving. His relations had mentioned final week that that they had been informed he was present process a “medical intervention,” which they feared meant he was being drive fed to maintain him from dying throughout the local weather convention.

“I’m so relieved,” one in every of his sisters, Sanaa Seif, wrote on Twitter on Monday after her mom, Laila Soueif, had acquired the letter from jail. “Proof of life, eventually.”

Khaled Ali, Mr. Abd El Fattah’s lawyer, mentioned he had twice tried to go to over the previous week after being granted a visitation allow by the Egyptian authorities, solely to be turned away on the jail.

Mr. Abd El Fattah’s loss of life can be a significant blight on an occasion that Egypt had hoped would deliver solely constructive consideration to the nation. All of final week, as world leaders, local weather negotiators, activists and different delegates packed the Purple Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh for the convention, Mr. Abd El Fattah’s case solid a shadow over the proceedings, his title on many new lips.

His word was written a day after White Home officers mentioned President Biden raised Mr. Abd El Fattah’s case with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt in a gathering on the sidelines of the local weather summit, the place Mr. Biden had delivered a speech on his local weather agenda.

Hours after the Egyptian and American presidents met, Mr. Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, informed reporters aboard Air Power One which the administration was “doing all the pieces we will” to safe Mr. Abd El Fattah’s launch and that of different Egyptian political prisoners. However he mentioned the American delegation had not acquired any proof that he was alive.

The leaders of Britain, France and Germany all pressed the Egyptian president to launch him as properly. Local weather demonstrators held banners studying, “We’ve got not but been defeated,” a reference to a set of Mr. Abd El Fattah’s writings out and in of jail, “You Have Not But Been Defeated,” which was revealed final yr.

A flurry of tales about him appeared within the worldwide information media. However Egypt didn’t budge.

As an alternative, authorities supporters lashed out on the worldwide strain, utilizing social media and authorities media shops. They argued that he had been convicted of against the law in a legit authorized course of and deserved no particular therapy.

When Ms. Seif, Mr. Abd El Fattah’s sister, spoke publicly about his case on the convention, she was noisily interrupted by an Egyptian lawmaker and later filmed at one other occasion by Egyptian safety officers. Solely the truth that the convention was sponsored and secured by the United Nations stored extra pushback at bay.

United Nations safety officers ejected the lawmaker from Ms. Seif’s information convention and guarded a protest the place Ms. Seif appeared, although different Egyptian safety personnel in plain garments have been seen filming there as properly.

With affirmation that Mr. Abd El Fattah was alive, nonetheless, got here extra uncertainty. There have been few indicators that Egypt deliberate to launch him, and because the local weather convention nears its finish later this week, it was unclear whether or not he and his household may proceed leveraging Egypt’s second below sturdy worldwide scrutiny.