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US President Joe Biden will raise human rights issues when he meets Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Friday during his short stopover to attend the COP27 summit, according to officials. Biden "will never shy away from raising human rights with foreign leaders," a US official told journalists on Tuesday.
Several world leaders have expressed their support for Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British-Egyptian activist who is on a hunger and water strike in prison.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday joined Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson in calling for his release, saying that he "lobbied President al-Sisi for his release."
Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, also called for his immediate release. "I urge the Government to immediately release Abdel Fattah from prison and provide him with the necessary medical treatment," Türk said in a statement.
Abdel Fattah has been on hunger strike in Egypt for 219 days to protest the conditions of his detention, which rights groups call unjust. He began a water strike in jail on Sunday, to coincide with the first day of the COP27 climate summit.
Earlier on Tuesday, Abdel Fattah's sister Sanaa Seif spoke at a press conference during the climate summit about her brother's condition. She was disrupted by an Egyptian pro-government MP, who was escorted out by security.
Seif had earlier speculated whether her brother was being force-fed in prison.
This followed comments by Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, who responded to a question about Abdel Fattah potentially dying in prison by saying: "I am confident that prison authorities will provide the health care and the care that is available to all inmates as is the case in any other penal systems."
He called Abdel Fattah's hunger strike a "personal choice", and added that it would be "dealt with within the penal sytem."
This comes amid the backdrop of the critical climate conference, where several global leaders have issued dire warnings for the future of the climate.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told countries gathered at the start of the COP27 on Monday that they face a stark choice: work together now to cut emissions or condemn future generations to climate catastrophe.