On Friday, Amnesty International issued a statement calling on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah and human rights lawyer Mohamed El-Baqer, coinciding with the passage of a thousand days since their arrest.
The rights group also called on the British authorities to use all means to visit Abdel Fattah, a British Egyptian, in prison and secure his release. It added that Abdel Fattah’s life was in danger after his partial hunger strike exceeded 80 days. This came one day after 20 rights groups issued a joint statement calling for the immediate and unconditional release of El-Baqer. They said his detention was arbitrary and was intended to punish him for his legitimate human rights work. Tariq Al-Awadi, a member of the Presidential Pardon Committee, said that the committee called on the relevant authorities to release both Abdel Fattah and El-Baqer.
Amnesty International quoted Mada Masr saying that security authorities refuse to release Abdel Fattah. Abdel-Fattah had sent a letter to his mother, Laila Soueif, in which he said that his hunger strike would continue “until my demands are dealt with seriously, or I am retired.”
