{"id":340325,"date":"2025-12-29T03:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T03:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340325\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T03:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T03:08:11","slug":"starmer-under-fire-for-welcoming-egyptian-activist-who-called-to-kill-all-zionists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340325\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer under fire for welcoming Egyptian activist who called to &#8216;kill all Zionists&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was under pressure Sunday after \u201cabhorrent\u201d social media posts by a British-Egyptian activist came to light, days after the premier welcomed the former prisoner\u2019s return to the country.<\/p>\n<p>Alaa Abd el-Fattah only arrived back in the UK a few days ago, after years of diplomatic efforts by London to secure his release from detention in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>But after old social posts emerged of him calling for violence against \u201cZionists\u201d and the police, the opposition conservatives called Sunday for him to be stripped of his citizenship and deported to Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>Posting on X on Friday, Starmer had said he was \u201cdelighted\u201d Fattah had been reunited with his loved ones in the UK, after Egypt lifted its travel ban.<\/p>\n<p>Now Starmer is facing calls to retract those comments over the content of the activist\u2019s posts, which date back to 2010.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel&#8217;s Daily Edition<br \/>\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/terms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">terms<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to The Daily Telegraph, the tweets include statements that \u201cI consider killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them,\u201d as well as \u201cThere was no genocide against Jews by the Nazis \u2013 after all, many Jews are left,\u201d and also a tweet reading: \u201cDear Zionists, please don\u2019t ever talk to me, I\u2019m a violent person who advocated the killing of all Zionists including civilians, so f*** off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also once wrote: \u201cPolice are not human, they don\u2019t have rights, we should just kill them all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/static-cdn.toi-media.com\/www\/uploads\/2025\/11\/AFP__20251029__82EY3YL__v1__HighRes__BritainVietnamPoliticsDiplomacy.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3679010\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20251029__82EY3YL__v1__HighRes__BritainVietnamPoliticsDiplomacy-640x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\tBritain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street, in central London on October 29, 2025. (Leon Neal \/ POOL \/ AFP)<\/p>\n<p>A Foreign Office statement said Sunday: \u201cMr El-Fattah is a British citizen. It has been a long-standing priority under successive governments to work for his release from detention, and to see him reunited with his family in the UK. The government condemns Mr El-Fattah\u2019s historic tweets and considers them to be abhorrent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The tweets had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/controversial-egyptian-activist-nominated-for-prestigious-eu-award\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">also previously surfaced in 2014<\/a>, when he was nominated for the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. His nomination was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/egyptian-activist-loses-bid-for-eu-honor-over-call-to-kill-israelis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">later withdrawn<\/a> due to the controversy.<\/p>\n<p>Shadow justice minister Robert Jenrick, of the opposition Conservatives, called on Sunday for Fattah to be stripped of his citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the Prime Minister really was unaware that El Fattah was an extremist, he should immediately retract his comments expressing \u2018delight\u2019 at his arrival and begin proceedings to revoke his citizenship and deport him,\u201d Jenrick wrote on X.<\/p>\n<p>Fattah was a leading voice in Egypt\u2019s 2011 Arab Spring uprising. He was detained in Egypt in September 2019, and in December 2021 was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news.<\/p>\n<p>His imprisonment was branded a breach of international law by UN investigators, and international campaigns were launched to get him freed.<\/p>\n<p>His mother went on a long-running hunger strike as part of her efforts to secure his release. Fattah himself went on hunger strike this March while behind bars and was later released after being pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi.<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/static-cdn.toi-media.com\/www\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20250205__36X89PM__v1__HighRes__BritainEgyptPrisonersRightsDemo.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3722024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20250205__36X89PM__v1__HighRes__BritainEgyptPrisonersRightsDemo-640x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\tLaila Soueif, mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, takes part in a vigil opposite 10 Downing Street in central London on February 5, 2025, calling for his release. (Adrian DENNIS \/ AFP)<\/p>\n<p>The Board of Deputies of British Jews said in a statement Sunday that it had raised the issue of Fattah\u2019s past comments with the government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis previous extremist and violent rhetoric aimed at \u2018Zionists\u2019 and white people in general is threatening to British Jews and the wider public,\u201d the organization said. \u201cThe cross-party campaign for such a person, and the warm welcome issued by the government, demonstrate a broken system with an astonishing lack of due diligence by the authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Jewish umbrella organization wrote that there is \u201can urgent need to know if he still holds these views and, if so, what measures the government intends to take to keep the Jewish community and the wider public safe, and to ensure that proper due diligence is being taken on such cases going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tIs The Times of Israel important to you?\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>If so, we have a year-end request.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Every day during the past two years of war and rising global antisemitism, our journalists kept you abreast of the most important developments that merit your attention. 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Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was under pressure Sunday after \u201cabhorrent\u201d social media posts by a British-Egyptian activist&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-340325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}