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GENEVA —U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Tuerk is urging Egyptian authorities to immediately release a rights activist whose life reportedly hangs by a thread after a seven-month hunger strike.
British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been a thorn in the side of the Egyptian authorities for more than a decade. He has been in and out of prison due to his defense of civil rights and protest against human rights violations by Egyptian security forces.
Abdel Fattah currently is serving a five-year sentence on charges of publishing false news. He began a partial hunger strike in April to protest his imprisonment and cruel conditions of detention.
A spokeswoman for the U.N. high commissioner, Ravina Shamdasani, said Abdel Fattah stepped up his hunger strike on November 1. And, she says he stopped drinking water on November 6, the first day of COP27, the U.N. climate conference, which is being held in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh.
She said Abdel Fattah's condition is fragile and his dry hunger strike puts his life at acute risk.
"We are very concerned for his health and there is a lack of transparency as well around his current condition," Shamdasani said. "We understand that his family has not been able to contact him over the past couple of days and there are serious concerns about his health ... We again stress the need for him to be urgently, immediately be released and for him to receive the necessary medical treatment as soon as possible."
Abdel Fattah's sister, Sanna Seif, has flown from Britain to Sharm el-Sheikh to campaign on behalf of her brother's release.
Shamdasani agrees that COP27 could be a pressure point, as all eyes will be riveted on what comes out of the conference.
"We do hope that this will also be an opportunity to improve the human rights in Egypt, to insist upon and to secure the release of those people who have been arbitrarily detained not only in relation to COP 27 but over the years for exercise of their right to freedom of assembly, freedom of expression," she said.
Shamdasani said High Commissioner Tuerk personally raised the issue of Abdel Fattah's continued imprisonment with Egyptian authorities on Friday.
She noted the U.N. human rights office as well as U.N. special rapporteurs have brought up human rights concerns with the Egyptian government for years.