Controversial Tweets Ignite Calls for Deportation of British-Egyptian Activist

Mon Dec 29 2025 16:51:46 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

Alaa Abd El Fattah faces potential deportation from the UK after apologizing for historic tweets deemed inflammatory. His arrival in the UK after years of imprisonment in Egypt draws mixed reactions.

Alaa Abd El Fattah, a British-Egyptian democracy activist, recently issued an apology for past tweets that have sparked controversy and calls for his deportation from the UK. Following his release from an Egyptian jail, his comments, which call for violence against certain groups, have resurfaced, leading Tory and Reform UK leaders to urge the Home Secretary to consider revoking his citizenship. Despite the backlash, Abd El Fattah insists his statements have been misinterpreted and emphasizes his commitment to social justice.

British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd El Fattah has apologised for several of his old tweets that have resurfaced, as calls grow for him to be deported from the UK days after he arrived following his release from an Egyptian jail.

Tory and Reform UK leaders say the home secretary should consider whether Abd El Fattah, a dual national, can be removed after social media messages showed him calling for Zionists and police to be killed.

The Times reports some senior Labour MPs are also calling for his citizenship to be removed.

After reviewing the historic posts, Abd El Fattah said: I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.

He added: I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship.

Abd El Fattah said he took allegations of antisemitism very seriously while arguing some of the posts had been completely twisted out of their meaning.

Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for saying he was delighted by Abd El Fattah's arrival in the UK on Friday, three months after he was freed from prison in Egypt, but it is understood he was unaware of the historical messages.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage both said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood should look at whether Abd El Fattah's citizenship could be revoked to enable his swift removal from the UK.

Farage said in a letter to Mahmood: It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr. el-Fattah should not be allowed into the UK.

The Foreign Office said it had been a long-standing priority under successive governments to work for Abd El Fattah's release and see him reunited with his family in the UK, but condemned his posts as abhorrent.

The 44-year-old was convicted in 2021 of spreading fake news in Egypt for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country following a trial that human rights groups said was grossly unfair.

He was granted citizenship in December 2021 through his London-born mother - when the Conservatives were in power and Dame Priti Patel was home secretary.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp - who was immigration minister under Patel - told the BBC he did not know of these details in 2021. He added he was now clear in his mind that this man should have his citizenship revoked.

There is no excuse for what he wrote, Philp told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

In one resurfaced tweet, from 2012, Abd El Fattah appears to say: I am a racist, I don't like white people. In another, he says he considers killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them.

He is also accused of saying police do not have rights and we should kill them all.

There is no excuse for that kind of language, Philp said on Monday. People who express that kind of hatred, that kind of anti-white racism, that kind of extremism who seek to incite violence, have no place in the United Kingdom.

Appearing on the same programme, Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, accused Philp of throwing ideas around that were just not based in law.

The bottom and top of it is that he [Abd El Fattah] is a British citizen, she told Today.

He was entitled to British citizenship, he claimed it so he is a British citizen. The British government has been doing their utmost to get him back into the country and out of jail.

The UK has responsibilities under international law to avoid leaving people stateless and British citizenship can only be stripped from someone eligible to apply for citizenship in another country.

Badenoch said Abd El Fattah's reported comments were disgusting and abhorrent and anti-British, adding that citizenship decisions must take account of social media activity, public statements, and patterns of belief.

She said: It is one thing to work for someone's release from prison if they've been treated unfairly as previous governments did. It is quite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero.

Abd El Fattah rose to prominence during an uprising in 2011 that forced the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign. He has spent more than a decade behind bars and was recently reunited with his 14-year-old son in the UK.