Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Egypt
Alaa Abd el-Fattah, an activist and pc programmer, is arguably probably the most high-profile political prisoner within the Arab world, incarcerated for spreading false information and endangering nationwide safety.
A key determine in Egypt’s 2011 rebellion that overthrew the previous dictator, Hosni Mubarak, he turned recognized for his activism and writing about countering authoritarianism. His assortment of essays and reflections, You Have Not Been Defeated, was largely written from jail and smuggled out by mates. “I’m in jail as a result of the authorities need to make an instance of us. So allow us to be an instance, however of our personal selecting. Allow us to be an instance, and never a warning,” he wrote in a single.
Abd el-Fattah has had many prolonged spells in jail however was final detained in 2019, when authorities swept up well-known activists throughout anti-government protests. After two years of being held with out trial, in December 2021, he was sentenced by Egypt’s emergency state safety courtroom to 5 years for sharing a Fb publish about human rights violations in jail.
He has since been moved to Wadi al-Natrun jail in Cairo, the place his household say he has been denied entry to contemporary air, daylight, ample clothes and private belongings. Regardless of buying UK citizenship by his British-born mom in 2021, he has been denied consular visits.
His household anticipated him to be launched in September this yr, however the authorities dominated that the 2 years he served in pre-trial detention didn’t rely as time served. His mom has begun a starvation strike. His sister, Mona Seif, believes the Egyptian president, Abdel Farrah el-Sisi, has a private grudge in opposition to him.
This month, a bunch of 15 British and Egyptian NGOs wrote to the UK Overseas Workplace to ask that it insists that financial ties with Egypt can’t be strengthened whereas Abd el-Fattah stays in jail, one thing the overseas secretary, David Lammy, advocated when in opposition.
They level out Egypt is pushing to safe new British funding, with senior ministers and buyers visiting the UK, and discuss of a British-Egyptian funding convention.
Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong
Lai has been in a Hong Kong jail cell for nearly 4 years. The media mogul and pro-democracy activist was arrested in 2020 on fees associated to the 2019 mass protests that rocked town. Later that yr, he was arrested once more, by nationwide safety police who raided the newspaper he based, Apple Each day. They accused Lai of colluding with overseas forces in breach of the nationwide safety legislation launched that yr. Chinese language officers have referred to as him a “mastermind and instigator of anti-China riots”.
Lai’s bail was revoked months later and he was held on remand. That rolled right into a sentence for “illegal meeting” convictions associated to the 2019 protests and Tiananmen bloodbath vigils. He’s now serving one other sentence of greater than 5 years for a lease violation, which critics have referred to as a trumped-up cost designed to maintain the influential activist behind bars.
He’s being held in solitary confinement, the place his attorneys say he sees daylight solely by home windows within the hall outdoors his cell and is taken out as soon as a day for an hour’s train. The dedicated Catholic has not acquired communion whereas detained, which his son, Sebastien, describes as “petty”.
His trial resumed final week after a number of delays and authorities interventions, together with efforts to bar a UK lawyer, Timothy Owen, from representing him. He’s going through a life sentence if convicted, however even just a few additional years are of concern for Lai, 76. “He’s not doing properly, sadly,” mentioned Sebastien Lai, who’s lobbying western governments to assist launch his father. “His well being has gotten a lot worse, and he was too sick to go to courtroom just a few months in the past.”
Lai is a full UK citizen who has solely ever held English papers. Receiving British nationwide (abroad) standing was “the primary time any state recognised him as an individual”, his son says.
However he and others say the UK authorities’s help has been “ridiculously” missing, far behind these of different international locations such because the US, Canada and Australia, which have lobbied for him.
“It took two years earlier than [the UK] began asking for consular entry,” mentioned Mark Sabah, the director of the London-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong. “Two years earlier than they even mentioned his identify on the dispatch field.”
Sebastien Lai mentioned the decision from Lammy for Lai’s launch whereas on a go to to China final month was welcome, however he needs his father’s case raised in all authorities engagements with Beijing.
Ryan Cornelius, the United Arab Emirates
Greater than 16 years have handed since Ryan Cornelius, a British property developer, was arrested at Dubai airport. He’s now 70, and his household is livid concerning the UK authorities’s response to his case.
Cornelius was charged in 2010 with defrauding the Dubai Islamic Financial institution (DIB) and sentenced to 10 years in jail within the UAE.
Two months earlier than his launch date in 2018, he was served with one other 20-year sentence – based mostly on a UAE legislation introduced in after his preliminary sentencing – till $430m in alleged debt was settled. Earlier than his detention, Cornelius, who had enterprise tasks in Bahrain, Dubai and Pakistan, had been repaying instalments on a $500m DIB mortgage.
Firstly of his imprisonment, he was held in solitary confinement for weeks, and he later contracted tuberculosis whereas in jail, which went untreated for 18 months, his household mentioned.
A gathering this yr with the Conservative overseas secretary David Cameron, who raised Cornelius’s case with UAE officers, made them eager for the primary time of his launch. However conferences with officers from the brand new Labour authorities have upset and dissatisfied them.
The businessman’s lawyer, Rhys Davies, mentioned: “David Cameron’s intervention was an absolute sport changer. Because the new authorities’s are available in it’s gone in fully the other way.”
“Their job is to face up for the rights of British residents, that ought to be their primary precedence and I simply don’t assume they’re doing that. Ryan ought to have been launched earlier this yr, there’s little question about it.”
Cornelius’s spouse, Heather, mentioned: “Brian is a human being, and his household are human beings. They want some type of assist and help and a few rights on this world. Should you can’t get them from the British authorities, who are you able to get it from?”
His brother-in-law, Chris Pagett, mentioned the UK had “many diplomatic devices” at its disposal, together with sanctions, “exactly to be able to defend British residents from this sort of autocratic thuggery. If you’re seen to be unwilling to make use of them, the one factor that’s sure is that there might be many extra Ryans, and this makes the world a far much less secure place,” he added.
The Overseas Workplace mentioned it was supporting Cornelius, and met his household to debate their considerations final month.
Mehran Raoof, Iran
In October 2020, Mehran Raoof was arrested in Tehran. The next yr, the British-Iranian commerce unionist and labour rights activist was sentenced to over 10 years’ imprisonment on nationwide security-related fees.
For years till his arrest, the previous instructor from north London had divided his time between the UK and Iran, instructing English, assembly different labour and ladies’s rights activists and serving to them translate supplies from and into English.
He says he was not instructed of the explanations for his arrest or the fees in opposition to him on the time, and was denied authorized entry till the day of his trial. He was convicted of “forming a bunch of greater than two individuals with the aim of disrupting nationwide safety” and “spreading propaganda in opposition to the system”, and stays incarcerated in Iran’s infamous Evin jail.
Raoof’s fellow commerce union activist Satar Rahmani mentioned Raoof had been subjected to prolonged interrogation and psychological and bodily harassment in jail, and was denied medical therapy for diabetes.
He has no speedy household in Iran, and for a number of months his family have been “fully unaware” of his whereabouts.
Getting details about Raoof’s wellbeing in jail has been a problem, mentioned the Amnesty Worldwide campaigner Sena Atici. The organisation, which considers Raoof a prisoner of conscience, has referred to as on the UK authorities to safe his launch.
In 2020, the Overseas Workplace mentioned his household was being supported and the case would proceed to be raised “on the most senior ranges”. However Liz Truss, then overseas secretary, reportedly made no reference to him in a 2022 announcement on the discharge of two different Iran detainees, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori. Pressed by Raoof’s MP, Jeremy Corbyn, Truss mentioned: “I need to respect the person’s request of whether or not their case ought to be raised in public.”
Rahmani mentioned no such request was made. He mentioned the brand new Labour authorities had met Raoof’s household, and Starmer had raised his case with Iran’s new prime minister, Masoud Pezeshkian, together with requesting a go to by a British embassy official.
A Overseas Workplace spokesperson mentioned: “We have now raised Mr Raoof’s well being and welfare considerations with the Iranian authorities and his welfare stays a prime precedence.”
Jagtar Singh Johal, India
Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh activist and blogger from Dumbarton in Scotland, was arrested in 2017 whereas attending a marriage within the Punjab.
He’s accused as a co-conspirator within the murders of three far-right Hindu leaders and the funding of the Khalistan Liberation Entrance. One of many fees is that he travelled to France in 2013 at hand over £3,000 to a co-conspirator, understanding the cash could be used to fund a collection of assaults in opposition to Hindu nationalists and different spiritual leaders in Punjab.
He claims that quickly after his arrest he was tortured into signing confessions. Over time, additional fees have been added, together with some as late as 2021. He’s now being held at Tihar jail, Delhi.
In November 2021, a United Nations working social gathering mentioned Johal, now 37, had been arrested due to his Sikh activism. In February 2023, Starmer mentioned there was no authorized foundation for Johal’s detention and the federal government should act decisively to barter his launch.
Jagtar Singh Johal’s brother, Gurpreet Singh Johal, mentioned Johal was a peaceable activist who had contributed to an internet site remembering the 1984 bloodbath on the Golden Temple at Amritsar however was not a militant.
Though he has appeared in courtroom quite a few instances alongside different co-conspirators, nothing however inventory witnesses have been produced in opposition to him, he mentioned. One of many witnesses essential to the prosecution case has since died.
Gurpreet Singh Johal mentioned: “My brother shouldn’t be in jail. All he ever did was rise up for human rights, as we’ve got mentioned from day one. Prosecutors can’t give you any proof in opposition to him as a result of there isn’t any.”
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