UK MPs dig up decade-old tweets to demand human rights campaigners lose citizenship | Human Rights News

Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who was sentenced to years of imprisonment in Egypt, apologizes “unequivocally” for his tweets.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah, an Egyptian-British human rights activist, has apologized “unequivocally” after right-wing leaders in the UK dug up decade-old tweets to demand he be stripped of his British citizenship.

In a lengthy apology posted online, the writer and blogger – who I returned to Britain this week after 12 years of imprisonment in Egypt – said the tweets were “shocking and hurtful” but added that some were “completely distorted”.

Leaders of the Conservative Party and Britain’s Reform far-right, as well as right-wing commentators, have taken to sympathetic media and social media to demand that Abd El-Fattah be stripped of his citizenship over posts dating back to 2010, which included alleged references to the killing of Zionists and police officers.

The tweets were “an expression of a young man’s anger and frustrations at a time of regional crises,” including the wars in Iraq and Gaza, and a pervasive culture of “online insult battles,” Abd El-Fattah wrote.

However, “I should have known,” he said.

“I am shaken that as I reunite with my family for the first time in 12 years, several of my historic tweets have been reposted and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating into calls for the revocation of my citizenship,” he added.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote in a Daily Mail editorial that Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood should consider how Abd El-Fattah “can be kicked out of Britain” and added that she “doesn’t want people who hate Britain coming to our country.”

Nigel Farage, the British reform leader, published a letter he wrote to Mahmood on X and criticized Badenoch for being part of the 2021 administration, then under Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who obtained citizenship from Abd El-Fattah.

Human rights activists and supporters of Abd El-Fattah called the efforts a smear campaign and called on his supporters to apologize.

Jewish academic and writer Naomi Klein wrote on social media that right-wingers were “playing politics with his hard-won freedom,” while Mai El-Sadany, executive director of the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the citizenship revocation campaign was “coordinated” to “challenge and harm his reputation.”

British law allows the Home Secretary to revoke citizenship if doing so is considered “conducive to the public good”, a policy which critics say is disproportionately applied to British Muslims.

In a 2022 reportThe Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion estimated that at least 175 people have been stripped of their British citizenship since 2006, including more than 100 in 2017 – prompting the group to see the UK as “a global leader in the race to the bottom” for revocations.

Some of the anger among British conservatives appears to stem from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s reaction to Abd El-Fattah’s release. Earlier this week he said the case was a “top priority” and added he was “delighted” by Abd El-Fattah’s return, a sentiment echoed by Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper.

Abd El-Fattah was imprisoned during mass protests in Egypt in 2011 that toppled then-leader Hosni Mubarak. He then became a leading critic of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who took power in record time. military coup two years later.

The writer was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2014 for spreading false news. He was briefly released in 2019 before being sentenced to another five years.

He received a pardon in September, along with five other prisoners, after repeated international calls for his release.