A British-Egyptian activist who is on hunger and water strike in prison has been admitted to hospital amid growing concerns authorities are force-feeding him.
Mona Seif, the sister of Alaa Abdel-Fattah, said that prison officials told her "medical intervention" has been initiated.
Abdel-Fattah, 40, is serving a five-year sentence on sham charges of disseminating false news and stopped drinking water on November 6, the day Egypt welcomed a global delegation to the UN COP27 climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh.
World leaders and activists have repeatedly called for Egyptian authorities to release him, but the British government has failed to intervene.
Omar Robert Hamilton, Abdel-Fattah's cousin and an editor of his recent Selected Works told the Mirror how worried the family is at this news.
He said: "I am not comforted at all and believe he’s still at massive risk. The Egyptian authorities are totally opaque, cruel, incompetent, corrupt and so paralysed by fear that information doesn’t travel along chains of command properly - so anything could happen.
"After being on hunger strike for seven months Alaa's body is in an incredibly precarious state and the wrong intervention could have terrible consequences.
"This is against his will, illegal and cruel. We don't even know if he's in a hospital or still inside the prison. The cruelty is unfathomable."
Wadi el-Natron Prison officials today refused to allow his mother, Laila Soueif to wait at the prison gates.
They refused to take receipt of a letter she had written to the Prison Governor and one to her son, instead informing her that he had “undergone a medical intervention with the knowledge of a judicial authority.”
The family is demanding information on the substance of the “medical intervention” and says that with the utmost urgency he is moved to a hospital where lawyers and family can reach him.
Egypt has still not granted the UK consular access to him, despite British and Egyptian officials working closely together on planning for the climate summit, as Britain hosted last year.
Computer programmer and author Abdel-Fattah is well known in Egypt as a giant figure in the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, the ex-despot of Egypt.
Céline Lebrun Shaath, a rights activist tweeted: "Are Egyptian authorities force-feeding Alaa? It seems so. Reminder: Force-feeding is an act of torture and fulfils the requirements to being considered a Crime Against Humanity. What is the international community in Sharm El Sheikh doing?"
As Egypt witnesses its worst human rights crisis in modern history, the UK continues to prop up the regime.
The UK is one of the largest investors in Egypt, with a total estimated at £50billion and 2,000 UK companies operating in the Egyptian market.
While in Egypt, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak failed to make any concessions or secure the release of his British citizen.
