Anglo-Egyptian dissident apologizes for tweets as Tories push for expulsion from UK

British-Egyptian democracy campaigner Alaa Abd El Fattah has apologized for several of his old tweets which have resurfaced, as calls grow for him to be deported from the UK days after arriving following his release from an Egyptian prison.

Britain’s Conservative and Reform leaders say the Home Secretary should consider whether Mr Abd El Fattah, a dual national, can be removed from office after social media posts showed him calling for the killing of Zionists and police.

THE The Times reports that some senior Labor MPs are also calling for his citizenship to delete.

After reviewing these historic messages, Mr. Abd El Fattah said: “I understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and I unequivocally apologize for them. »

He added: “I am shaken that, even 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. »

Mr Abd El Fattah said he took allegations of anti-Semitism “very seriously”, while claiming that some messages had been “completely distorted”.

Sir Keir Starmer was criticized for saying he was “delighted” at Mr Abd El Fattah’s arrival in the UK on Friday, three months after his release from prison in Egypt, but it appears he was unaware of the historic messages.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said: “We welcome the return of a British citizen unjustly detained overseas, as we would in any case and as we have done in the past.”

He added that the government has “condemned the nature of these historic tweets, and we consider them abhorrent.”

The Foreign Office is understood to have launched an internal investigation into the way the matter was handled by successive governments.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and British Reform leader Nigel Farage have both said Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood should examine whether Abd El Fattah’s citizenship could be revoked to allow his rapid expulsion from the UK.

Farage said in a letter to Mahmood: “It goes without saying that anyone who holds racist and anti-British views such as those of [Mr Abd El Fattah] should not be allowed to enter the UK.

A government source said Abd El Fatteh arrived in the country as a British citizen and there was no legal avenue to block his entry, even though authorities were aware of his previous social media posts.

A 2016 trial also meant there was no “good character” test Abd El Fatteh had to meet when he successfully applied for citizenship in 2021 under the then-conservative government. He was eligible for citizenship through his mother, who was born in London.

It is understood that Downing Street believes there is a high bar for someone to have their citizenship revoked because they must either have obtained citizenship through fraud or be considered to pose a significant threat to national security – a test unlikely to be met in this case.

Any such decision would also be subject to legal challenge.

The Foreign Office said Abd El Fattah’s release was “a long-standing priority under successive governments”.

The 44-year-old was convicted in 2021 of “spreading false news” in Egypt for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country following a trial that human rights groups called grossly unfair.

He gained citizenship in December 2021 through his London-born mother – when the Conservatives were in power and Dame Priti Patel was home secretary.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp – who was immigration minister under Patel but left the role in September 2021 before citizenship was granted – told the BBC he was not aware of these details at the time. He added that it was now clear in his mind that “this man should have his citizenship revoked.”

“There’s no excuse for what he wrote,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

In a resurfaced tweet from 2012, Abd El Fattah appears to say: “I’m racist, I don’t like white people.” In another, he says he considers “killing all the colonialists, and especially the Zionists, heroic, we must kill more.”

He is also accused of saying that police officers have no rights and that “we should kill them all.”

“There is no excuse for this kind of language,” Philp said Monday. “People who express this kind of hatred, this kind of anti-white racism, this kind of extremism that seeks to incite violence, have no place in the UK.”

Appearing on the same show, Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused Philp of “throwing out ideas that were simply not based in law”.

“The bottom and the top is that he [Abd El Fattah] is a British citizen,” she told Today.

“He was entitled to British citizenship, he claimed it, so he is a British citizen. The British government did everything possible to bring him back into the country and get him out of prison.”

The UK has a responsibility under international law to avoid leaving people stateless and British citizenship can only be withdrawn from someone eligible to apply for citizenship in another country.

Badenoch said Abd El Fattah’s reported comments were “disgusting and abhorrent” and anti-British, adding that citizenship decisions “must take into account social media activity, public statements and belief patterns”.

She said: “It’s one thing to work for someone’s release if they have been treated unfairly. as previous governments have done. It’s another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, to the status of moral heroes. »

She added that Abd El Fattah “should have benefited from a free and fair trial in Egypt”, but “my sympathy ends there”.

In his letter to the Home Secretary, Farage said it was “astonishing” that neither Labor MPs, nor the Conservatives, nor any other party had shown “due diligence” on Abd El Fattah as they campaigned for his release.

He said Starmer had shown an “extraordinary error of judgement” when he posted on X to welcome the return of Abd El Fattah.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the case was “deeply concerning”.

Adrian Cohen, senior vice-chairman of the board, said: “His previous extremist and violent rhetoric targeting ‘Zionists’ and white people in general is threatening to British Jews and the general public.

“The cross-party campaign for such an individual and the warm welcome given by the government demonstrates a broken system and a stunning lack of due diligence on the part of the authorities.”

While acknowledging that some of his comments were “shocking and hurtful,” Abd El Fattah says some of the old posts were misinterpreted.

“For example, a tweet shared to allege homophobia on my part was in effect ridiculing homophobia,” he said in a statement.

“I have paid a heavy price for my public support for LGBTQ+ rights in Egypt and around the world.”

The UK-based human rights organization Amnesty International said it championed the activist’s cause for human rights and freedom of expression, and did not tolerate “any statement that perpetuates hatred, discrimination and division”.

Writer, intellectual and software developer Abd El Fattah rose to prominence during the 2011 uprising that forced former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

He spent more than a decade of his life behind bars and was released in September after a presidential pardon following a long campaign by his family and lobbying by the British government.

In 2014, Abd El Fattah was nominated for a European human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, but his nomination was withdrawn due to tweets about Israel he posted in 2012.

He said the comments were part of a “private conversation” that took place during an Israeli offensive in Gaza and had been taken out of context.

After being removed from a travel ban list imposed by Egyptian authorities which kept him in the country for three months following his release from prison, Abd El Fattah has now been reunited with his 14-year-old son, who lives in Brighton.