Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a backlash after welcoming an Egyptian human rights activist to the UK. The activists in question spent years in prison in Egypt and was just released to the UK where he has dual citizenship.
Starmer said Friday that he was “delighted” that Alaa Abd El-Fattah, 44, had arrived in London after the Egyptian government lifted a travel ban that it had imposed on him following his September release from jail in the country, where he spent more than a decade as a political prisoner.
“I want to pay tribute to Alaa’s family, and to all those that have worked and campaigned for this moment,” Starmer said, adding that Abd El-Fattah’s case had been a “top priority” for his Labour government since it came to office in the summer of 2024.
His dual citizenship was granted to him in 2021 when conservatives ran the government but this week, conservatives called for El-Fattah to be deported after a bunch of tweets he posted a decade ago were revealed.
Most of the social media posts in question were written on X between 2010 and 2012 during the Arab spring, when the British-Egyptian democracy activist was turning 30. The tweets appeared to show Abd el-Fattah calling for violence against Zionists and the police.
In the posts, most of which appear to have been deleted and could not immediately be verified, he described the killing of Zionists as heroic, adding “we need to kill more of them”. In 2011 he is accused of saying police “don’t have rights, we should just kill them all”. He also once described British people as dogs and monkeys.
Screenshots posted online appear to show that on 8 August 2011, during the London riots, he posted: “Go burn the city or downing street or hunt police u fools.” A year later he appeared to post: “By the way I’m a racist, I don’t like white people so piss off.”
El-Fattah has issued an apology saying the tweets were just the anger of a young man.
In a statement issued in the early hours of Monday morning, after a day of frantic consultations, he wrote: “Looking at the tweets now – the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning – I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.
“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. 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.”
In some of the tweets he describes the killing of Zionists as heroic, adding “we need to kill more of them”. He also once described British people as dogs and monkeys.
“Looking back, I see the writings of a much younger person, deeply enmeshed in antagonistic online cultures, utilising flippant, shocking and sarcastic tones in the nascent, febrile world of social media. But this young man never intended to offend a wider public and was, in the real world, engaged in the non-violent pro-democracy movement and repeatedly incarcerated for calling for full equality, human rights and democracy for all.
“Today, this middle-aged father firmly believes all our fates are entwined and we can only achieve prosperous and safe lives for our children together. All the initiatives I’ve led reflect this”.
For his part, PM Starmer has claimed he was unaware of El-Fattah's racist views, though his tweets were raised back in 2014. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage suggested El-Fattah didn't belong in the UK.
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage described the posts as “abhorrent” and said they showed Abd el-Fattah held views that are “completely opposed to our British way of life.”
“It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr. elFattah (sic) should not be allowed into the UK,” Farage wrote in a letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who oversees immigration matters.
Here's some discussion of the case on Talk TV.
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