For the largest demonstration of this COP inside the very “Blue Zone” where the negotiations take place, the crowd marched between the official pavilions in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Among the speakers, Sanaa Seif, the sister of the Egyptian-British Alaa Abdel Fattah, who organized two noteworthy press conferences at COP27 on Tuesday.
At each of them, she had been taken to task by Egyptian officials claiming that her brother was a “criminal”.
“I’m sure the powerful thought I wouldn’t be heard but here I find a family waiting for me (…) from all over the world,” said an activist reading a statement from Sanaa Seif in front of the crowd.
Her brother, a pro-democracy blogger turned Arab Spring icon, quit drinking on the opening day of COP27 on Sunday after spending seven months ingesting just 100 calories a day.
To try to find out more about his health, his lawyer Khaled Ali announced that he had requested a new visit permit on Saturday. Thursday, his permit issued by the prosecution had been refused by the prison administration because it was dated the day before.
His family, who say he is in danger of death, multiplies the calls to the international community – and to London in the first place since all the members of the family have a British passport.
After several Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden on Friday, raised his case with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the prisoner’s family changed tack.
On Friday evening, his lawyer and his other sister, Mona Seif, announced that they had formally filed a new request for presidential pardon, stressing in particular that Alaa was “the only man in the family after the death of his father”, a great rights lawyer human beings, and that her son, “affected by autism, had lost his speech” since his last arrest.
Arguments that seem to have borne fruit since one of the country’s most influential talk show presenters, Amr Adib, a big supporter of Mr. Sissi, pleaded for a pardon “because you have to see Egypt’s interest before all thing”.
Icon of the 2011 revolution in Egypt which ousted Hosni Mubarak from power – a popular movement denounced by Mr. Sissi – Alaa Abdel Fattah, who will turn 41 on November 18, was arrested at the end of 2019.
He was sentenced to five years in prison for spreading “false information” after reposting on Facebook a text, written by another, accusing an officer of torture.
According to NGOs, 60,000 political detainees are imprisoned in Egypt.
