Alaa Abdelfattah and Britain’s selective outrage |
The intensity of the current backlash against Alaa Abdelfattah in Britain is striking – not because it reflects a renewed concern for justice, but because it exposes how selectively outrage is deployed.
Alaa, an Egyptian-British writer and activist, spent more than a decade in and out of Egyptian prisons following the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. His detention was marked by prolonged hunger strikes, denial of basic rights and treatment that human rights organisations described as cruel and degrading. He was released on September 23 after a years-long campaign by his mother, sister and close friends. A travel ban on him was lifted only this month, and he was able to join his family in the UK on December 26.
Alaa left behind a decade of repression in Cairo only to be welcomed in London with public attacks and a call for the revocation of his British citizenship and his deportation. Public hostility was whipped up by the uncovering of a social media post from 2010 in which Alaa said he considered “killing any colonialists … heroic”, including Zionists.
The tweet has been widely condemned, referred to the counter-terrorism police for review, and seized upon by politicians calling for punitive measures.
The speed and intensity of this reaction stand in stark contrast to the silence surrounding far more consequential statements and actions that the UK not only tolerates but actively........