Former ambassador calls for UK to advise against Egypt travel

A former British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, has urged the UK to advise its citizens against travelling to the country, in response to Cairo's refusal to release dual British Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

- Patrick Wintour

A UN panel found on Wednesday that Fattah had been held arbitrarily in jail since 2019, but Egypt was refusing to give the UK consular access - let alone release him. His mother has been refusing food in protest at his detention.

Casson, the ambassador to Egypt from 2014 to 2018, said: "Egypt pretends to be a friend of the UK and is dependent on British visitors to keep its economy afloat. We have to demonstrate that that is not compatible with abusing our citizens and blocking our embassy."

He added that the Foreign Office had worked its way through "the normal diplomatic playbook" to secure his release, but this "only revealed Egypt fobbing us off and trying to push us around".

Casson told the BBC: "It is a police state in Egypt. It is violent and vindictive and it is abusing a British citizen in Alaa Abd el-Fattah.