Government urged to upgrade travel warning for ‘police state’ Egypt following ongoing detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah

Leading figures have called on the UK government to update official travel advice to caution against travel to Egypt as British-Egyptian democracy activist and writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah remains in detention.

The former ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, is among the signatories of a letter to The Times today (May 29), urging the government to “deploy the full range of tools it has to protect British citizens”.

The letter added: “This includes official travel advice that should caution against travel to Egypt, making it clear that a British citizen who falls foul of the police state in Egypt cannot expect fair process, nor normal support from the British government.”

UN investigators have said that Mr Abd el-Fattah, who has spent nearly a decade imprisoned in Egypt, is being detained illegally and should be released immediately.

Mr Abd el-Fattah has been held in Egypt since September 2019, and in 2021, he was handed a five-year prison sentence on charges of spreading false news for re-sharing a social media post.

The UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), a panel of independent human rights experts, found that his imprisonment was illegal based on the lack of a warrant and reasons for his arrest, the lack of a fair trial, his being arrested for exercising freedom of expression, and the fact that his detention was discriminatory.

The Times letter continued: “Egypt can’t have it both ways. It pretends to be a friend and depends on flows of British tourists to keep its economy afloat. It needs to discover that kind of partnership is not compatible with abusing our citizens, and blocking our embassy from carrying out the most fundamental consular actions on their behalf.”

Signatories of the letter include Richard Ratcliffe, campaigner and husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in a prison in Iran for six years.

Responding to the UNWGAD ruling, Ratcliffe previously said: “The crime is not Alaa’s; the criminals are those still holding him, and provoking his family to desperation. For our family, our WGAD ruling was also a relief: we thought it would mark an end to the UK government’s prevarication and the beginning of firm action on Nazanin’s case. In the end, it did.

“But for Alaa’s family, time is so much shorter. The ruling needs to be implemented now. The law is clear, but so is the heavy cost of continuing to ignore it.

The current Foreign Office (FCDO) travel advice, which was last updated on 20 May and current on 29 May, advises against all travel to parts of Egypt, including North Sinai and within 20km of the Egypt-Libya border (except for the town of El Salloum, where it advises against all but essential travel).

The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to areas including the Ismailiyah Governorate east of the Suez Canal, the Hala’ib Triangle and the Bir Tawil Trapezoid.

It does not warn against travel to any of the main tourist destinations in Egypt, including Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Alexandria and the two Red Sea resorts of Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada.