London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Oct 06, 2025

‘Where is Liz Truss?’: sister of activist held in Cairo jail urges UK to act

‘Where is Liz Truss?’: sister of activist held in Cairo jail urges UK to act

Sanaa Seif says UK government is not standing up for her brother Alaa Abd El Fattah, on hunger strike and facing death
The sister of a British dual national human rights activist held in a Cairo jail and on the 74th day of a hunger strike, on Tuesday urged the UK foreign secretary to publicly demand that Alaa Abd El Fattah is saved from death by being released.

Sanaa Seif was speaking at an event attended by Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the released British-Iranian dual national, and Gurpreet Singh, the brother of Jagtar Singh Johal – a Sikh activist from Dunbarton detained by the Indian police nearly five years ago. He has still not been charged and says a confession was extracted under torture.

Seif said of her brother: “He is slowly dying in his prison cell but he wants to live. Why is the British government not standing up to President al-Sisi? Even after top-level phone calls, my brother is still being refused British consular access.

“How can Sisi ignore Boris Johnson like this? Where is Liz Truss? Will nobody stand up to Egypt before my brother dies in prison? Why has Truss not yet made an official statement about him. I can tell you, it hurts.”

Her brother, perhaps Egypt’s best known dissident, is currently taking 100 calories a day after the relaxation of his prison conditions. Generally, the recommended daily intake for men is 2,500 calories. Another sister, Mona, who visited him last week, was so shocked at his deteriorating condition that she has started a solidarity strike.

Sanaa Seif said she had been advised by the Foreign Office not to go public as there were many open lines, but she felt that route was not working. Her brother is serving a five-year sentence for sharing a blog post about Egyptian prison conditions.

David Lammy, Mona Seif’s constituency MP and the shadow foreign secretary, called on Truss to meet the family. He said: “Britain as a nation has to decide where it stands on human rights,” adding that families had learned that staying quiet did not work.

He said the Foreign Office’s efforts at the highest level to release British nationals appeared “arbitrary, haphazard, sometimes uncoordinated, sometimes lacking resource and certainly lacking transparency”. He said he was worried about “a foreign policy approach that is entirely transactional and not values-based. If you approach foreign policy as entirely transactional you want diplomacy to be quiet and in the dark and not in the light.”

Lammy added: “The British state needs to go public. Where you have disagreements with partner nations with which you are friendly, you get more respect if you are clear about human rights issues; you can have that robust conversation and stand up for your own citizens.”

Ratcliffe said the Foreign Office offered sympathy but provided little traction. He said: “The British government is no longer very serious about torture.” He said that in 2011 William Hague, then foreign secretary, had produced guidelines on how to combat torture, and each year the Foreign Office recorded 100 torture cases a year – and yet in the past 20 years the only case where a foreign secretary had directly accused another government of the torture had been that of his wife.

He said Pakistan had been accused of 69 cases of torture during the period that it was the largest recipient of British aid.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said: “This has already gone on for far too long and we need the UK government to make Alaa’s case an absolute priority. It’s frankly bewildering that the UK has not yet even publicly called for Alaa’s release. Why not? What are they waiting for?”

The press conference heard from friends and relations of other British Foreign Office consular cases, including the former BBC journalist Peter Juvenal, arrested six months ago by the Taliban, and James Fitton, a 66-year-old man sentenced by an Iraqi court for 15 years for stealing archeological artefacts said to be no larger than a finger nail.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
×