COP27 on the networks: more protests and appeals by activist Alaa Abdel Fattah

The flood is coming

Just like the previous day, Thursday (10) began with protests at the 27th UN Climate Conference (COP27). Inside the lobby, a woman drew everyone's attention to climate change and flooding.

Meanwhile, at the door of the event, a group of vegans protested against the food options offered at the event, with few options without animal protein.

Alaa Abdel Fattah

Anglo-Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, in danger of death after 7 months of hunger strike in prison in Egypt, is “undergoing medical treatment” – his family announced this Thursday (10).

A central figure in the popular uprising that overthrew then-president Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah was sentenced at the end of 2021 to five years in prison for “disseminating false information”, after spending most of the last decade behind bars. The 40-year-old activist, a staunch enemy of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi's regime, spent months eating “100 calories a day, that is, a spoonful of honey and a little milk in tea”, according to his family.

For Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the country's largest human rights NGO, this “means it is being force-fed”. He has stopped eating completely since the start of COP27.

His aunt, the famous writer Ahdaf Sueif, asked, in a message on Twitter, that the activist be “urgently transferred to the Qasr al-Aini university hospital”, the main public health establishment in Cairo, so that “other representatives, in addition to those of State, can see it, as well as their lawyers”.

Lawyers say he only has a few days to live – unless he is force-fed, which international law considers “torture” and even a “crime against humanity”. On the networks, there are expressions of solidarity and indignation.

The United Nations (UN) International Conference on Climate Change – COP27 – began last Sunday (6), in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. COP is the UN's major annual event whose objective is to discuss actions aimed at combating climate change. 

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