Defend British-Egyptian human rights activist from deportation calls
JVL Introduction
The year staggers to a close with Nigel Farage leading a pack of right-wing racists demanding that a British-Egyptian human rights activist be stripped of his UK citizenship because of ancient tweets that he has comprehensively renounced.
Some senior Labour MPs – perhaps harking back to the days when party bureaucrats trawled members’ social media accounts for excuses to expel dissenters – have joined the mob attacking Alaa Abd El Fattah, who was only days ago welcomed to the UK following his release from an Egyptian jail. But John McDonnell MP defended El Fattah in a Channel4 interview, calling him “a fine example of turning anger into something else”, paying the price of imprisonment in Egypt for humanitarian work on many causes including publicly rejecting anti-Jewish speech, defence of LGBTQ rights, defence of Egyptian Christians, and campaigning against police torture and brutality.
Comparison have been made with the case of Shamima Begum who was controversially stripped of her UK citizenship on grounds that her association with ISIS in Syria rendered her a danger to British national security. There are no legal grounds for depriving El-Fattah of his British citizenship. He has owned his mistakes and apologised unequivocally for them, writing at length (see statement at the bottom of this page) about social media posts which had included violent and racist language. Farage on the other hand continues to deny his well-evidenced Nazi-embracing past.
There is a petition in circulation in support of El Fattah.
NWI
This article was originally published by BBC on Mon 29 Dec 2025. Read the original here.
British-Egyptian dissident apologises for tweets as Tories push for UK deportation
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According to the BBC news, several tweets emerged that Alaa Abd El Fattah had posted 15 or so years ago. What does it mean “emerged”? Do these posts bob up like trapped bubbles? Do they hit the normally tranquil surface of daily life with an unexpected pop, suddenly making ripples where previously there was only calm? Was there no hand organising the trolling of a man long-imprisoned for fighting for justice?
As a socialist of Jewish heritage I feel raw anger at the trashing of the progressive principles of gemilut hasadim, of loving kindness, of Mentshheyt, by Zionism.
Zionism has long exploited the feelings of compassion of non-Jews horrified by the Holocaust and outraged by antisemitism, corrupting too the attitudes of Jewish communities. Once again today, whether in Palestine or in the boardroom of Jewish Deputies, its representatives and agents behave like jackals, howling in chorus with the most reactionary of political leaders.
Coincidentally and more or less by accident (after following a link from JVL!) I have signed up to the Mirror’s politics news mailing this week and intend to continue. Their politics coverage is usually excellent but I don’t buy the paper because so much of it is about celebs etc…
Just want to report that the Mirror’s very fair coverage of El Fattah’s situation was immediately followed by 80+ Comments, now 120+. As far as I could see I was the only person not saying he should be deported and his family home stormed. NB This is the Mirror, not the Mail/Sun/Telegraph/Murdoch-Times…
I would be delighted for more JVL readers to join in so that I’d feel less lonely in my views! I haven’t sent a link to this JVL post as I don’t want JVL to be inundated with hostile readers right now, but if anyone else would like to participate the other way round then the link to Mirror Politics is: [email protected]