I have no interest in defending his social media posts, but calls to strip the newly freed activist of British citizenship pile torment on top of torture
W
hat is the proper punishment for hateful social media posts? Should you lose your account? Your job? Your citizenship? Go to jail? Die? For the people who have launched a campaign against the British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, no punishment is too great.
I have no interest in defending the awful tweets in question, which Abd el-Fattah posted in the early 2010s. Many are indefensible and he has apologised “unequivocally” for them. He has also written movingly about how his perspective has changed in the intervening years. Years that have included more than a decade in jail, most of it in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison where he faced torture; missing his son’s entire childhood – and very nearly dying during a months-long hunger strike.
None of this suffering seems to be enough for Abd el-Fattah’s accusers. They want this man and this family to suffer yet more punishment. They are calling for him to be stripped of his British citizenship, to which he is entitled because his mother was born in the UK, and for him to be deported back to Egypt, the country that already robbed him of 12 years of his freedom. It’s a fate that could be a death sentence.
