Tuesday 3 November 2015

Egypt's Sisi UK visit puts spotlight on human rights


When President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi makes his first visit to the UK, Mohamed Lotfy will be watching - back in Cairo. The Egyptian human rights activist can't travel himself. The authorities confiscated his passport in June when he tried to fly to Germany, during the president's visit there, to discuss human rights. He got off lightly, he says, by only getting a travel ban. Other leading activists here won't be following the visit because they are in jail - among them icons of the 2011 revolution. "We have never had such a dismal situation for human rights," says the renowned Egyptian author and activist Ahdaf Soueif. "It's the worst it's ever been." Her nephew, Alaa Abdel Fattah, is one of the key figures from the uprising who are now behind bars.

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