Calls for Deportation of British-Egyptian Dissident Amid Controversial Tweets

Mon Dec 29 2025 16:28:07 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

Alaa Abd El Fattah, a British-Egyptian democracy activist, has issued an apology for resurfaced tweets as UK politicians demand his potential deportation over the nature of his statements.

British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah apologizes for past tweets after calls from UK politicians, including Conservative and Reform UK leaders, for his citizenship revocation and deportation. The tweets in question included statements deemed antisemitic and inciting violence. Abd El Fattah, recently released from an Egyptian prison, contends some of the posts were misinterpreted.

British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd El Fattah has apologised for several of his old tweets that have resurfaced, as calls grow for him to be deported from the UK days after he arrived following his release from an Egyptian jail.

Tory and Reform UK leaders say the home secretary should consider whether Abd El Fattah, a dual national, can be removed after social media messages showed him calling for Zionists and police to be killed.

The Times reports some senior Labour MPs are also calling for his citizenship to be removed.

After reviewing the historic posts, Abd El Fattah said: I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.

He added: I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship.

Abd El Fattah said he took allegations of antisemitism very seriously while arguing some of the posts had been completely twisted out of their meaning.

Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for saying he was delighted by Abd El Fattah's arrival in the UK on Friday, three months after he was freed from prison in Egypt, but it is understood he was unaware of the historical messages.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage both said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood should look at whether Abd El Fattah's citizenship could be revoked to enable his swift removal from the UK.

Farage said in a letter to Mahmood: It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr el-Fattah should not be allowed into the UK.

The Foreign Office said it had been a long-standing priority under successive governments to work for Abd El Fattah's release and see him reunited with his family in the UK, but condemned his posts as abhorrent.

The 44-year-old was convicted in 2021 of spreading fake news in Egypt for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country following a trial that human rights groups said was grossly unfair.

He was granted citizenship in December 2021 through his London-born mother - when the Conservatives were in power and Dame Priti Patel was home secretary.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp - who was immigration minister under Patel - told the BBC he did not know of these details in 2021. He added he was now clear in his mind that this man should have his citizenship revoked.

In one resurfaced tweet, from 2012, Abd El Fattah appears to say: I am a racist, I don't like white people. In another, he says he considers killing any colonialists and specially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them.

He is also accused of saying police do not have rights and we should kill them all.

Appearing on the same programme, Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, accused Philp of throwing ideas around that were just not based in law.

The bottom and top of it is that he [Abd El Fattah] is a British citizen, she told Today.

The UK has responsibilities under international law to avoid leaving people stateless and British citizenship can only be stripped from someone eligible to apply for citizenship in another country.

Badenoch said Abd El Fattah's reported comments were disgusting and abhorrent and anti-British, adding that citizenship decisions must take account of social media activity, public statements, and patterns of belief.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the case was of profound concern. Adrian Cohen, the board's senior vice-president, said: His previous extremist and violent rhetoric aimed at 'Zionists' and white people in general is threatening to British Jews and the wider public.

While conceding some of his comments were shocking and hurtful, Abd El Fattah contends some of the old messages were misinterpreted.

A writer, intellectual, and software developer, Abd El Fattah rose to prominence during an uprising in 2011 that forced the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign. He has spent more than a decade of his life behind bars and his release in September after a presidential pardon followed a long campaign by his family and lobbying by the British government.