Yvette Cooper has launched a review looking into “serious information failures” around the case of a British-Egyptian activist welcomed to the UK despite his past tweets now called “abhorrent” by the government.
Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” by Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s arrival on Friday but a political storm erupted after social media posts from a decade ago were unearthed including some in which the activist had called for Zionists to be killed.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who landed in London from Egypt on Boxing Day after the British government successfully negotiated his release, said he apologised “unequivocally” for his posts after opposition parties called for him to be deported and his citizenship revoked.
But on Tuesday the activist faced fresh criticism from the Conservatives after his official Facebook account appeared recently to have liked a social media post suggesting “Zionists against Alaa Abd el-Fattah” were behind a “campaign” against him.
Successive governments led by the Tories and Labour had advocated for Abd el-Fattah’s release over the past 10 years, almost all of which he spent in prison in Egypt for his political beliefs, including his opposition to the treatment of dissidents.
Cooper, the foreign secretary, wrote to MPs on Monday night to say the case had been “an unacceptable failure” and that due diligence procedures had been “completely inadequate for this situation”.
In a letter to the foreign affairs select committee, Cooper said she had asked the Foreign Office’s top civil servant “to review the serious information failures in this case” and the systems in place for high-profile consular cases.
Downing Street has defended its campaign for the release of Abd el-Fattah and its decision to welcome him to the UK despite his “abhorrent” tweets a decade ago.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said on Monday: “We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases and as we have done in the past. That is central to Britain’s commitment to religious and political freedom. It doesn’t change the fact that we have condemned the nature of these historic tweets and we consider them to be abhorrent.”
In one resurfaced tweet from 2010, Abd el-Fattah said he considered “killing any colonialists and specially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them”. In 2012 he posted: “I am a racist, I don’t like white people.” He is also accused of saying police did not have rights and “we should kill them all”, and referring to the British as “dogs and monkeys”.
Downing Street said Starmer had not been aware of the past tweets until after Abd el-Fattah entered the UK. The development raises questions about what vetting took place before Abd el-Fattah was granted UK citizenship in 2021 and what research the government carried out before it took up his case with the Egyptian authorities. Successive prime ministers including Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have campaigned for his release.
Government sources indicated that Abd el-Fattah was eligible for British citizenship through his mother without having to undergo character checks, and that case law suggested there was no grounds for removing his citizenship.
The Conservatives and Reform UK have both suggested the activist should be deported from the UK for the posts and have his British citizenship revoked, even though the law does not appear to provide grounds for either action.
On Monday night the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, posted on X: “At the same time as el-Fattah is apologising ‘unequivocally’, over on Arabic Facebook he is liking posts claiming he’s just the victim of a ‘Zionist campaign’. Get this disgusting man out of our country now.”
Other MPs have condemned Abd el-Fattah’s past posts but called for a measured response. Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, said: “For those of us who campaigned for his release, it is extremely disappointing to see these tweets and they cannot be condoned in any way. That doesn’t mean, however, that it would be right to take away his nationality and send him back to Egypt, where we can see that in a period of 10 years he spent most of the time in jail just for campaigning for human rights and democracy.
“If his apology today is heartfelt and genuine then he won’t need reminding of this, but it is against the law to incite religious hatred and violence, and he needs to stay within the law in the UK.”
John McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, said Abd el-Fattah had been “a furious young man, angry at the brutality of what he saw around him, especially the plight of the Palestinians”.
He added: “His appalling social media interventions were the product of that anger and had been exposed over a decade ago. But that’s the point: Alaa’s journey was from someone who could send these vile tweets to becoming an advocate for dignity, respect and human rights for all, a defender of the oppressed and persecuted no matter what their religion, gender or sexuality.”
In an apology issued on Monday, Abd el-Fattah said he understood “how shocking and hurtful” his previous comments were but claimed that some had been misconstrued.
“They were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises (the wars on Iraq, on Lebanon and Gaza), and the rise of police brutality against Egyptian youth,” he said. “I particularly regret some that were written as part of online insult battles with the total disregard for how they read to other people. I should have known better.”
He stressed that he took “accusations of antisemitism very seriously”, adding: “I have always believed that sectarianism and racism are the most sinister and dangerous of forces, and I did my part and paid the price for standing up for the rights of religious minorities in Egypt.”
Dan Dolan, the deputy executive director of the human rights organisation Reprieve, said: “Suggesting that someone should be stripped of citizenship for something they posted on social media, however bad, is authoritarian overreach of the worst kind and a deeply dangerous step. In a country governed by the rule of law, politicians should not have the power to strip the legal rights of whomever they choose.”
Abd el-Fattah was a prominent voice in Egypt’s 2011 Arab spring uprising and went on hunger strikes behind bars. In 2014, his posts on Twitter cost him a nomination for the European parliament’s Sakharov prize.
