A United Nations panel of experts said Wednesday British-Egyptian prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah is being arbitrarily detained in Egypt and called for his immediate release.
Abdel Fattah, who has been on hunger strike since March 1, has spent most of the past decade behind bars, most recently serving a five-year sentence for "spreading false news".
His mother, Laila Soueif, has been on her own hunger strike since September, when Abdel Fattah's sentence was meant to end, and has been lobbying the British government to push for his release.
According to a copy of a report provided by his family, the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a panel of independent human rights experts, provided a legal opinion Wednesday that Abdel Fattah's continued detention is arbitrary and illegal on a number of grounds.
It determined Abdel Fattah was arbitrarily arrested in September 2019 for exercising his right to freedom of expression, was not given a fair trial and continues to be detained for his political opinions.
They requested the Egyptian government "take the steps necessary to remedy the situation of Mr. Abdel Fattah without delay," and said "the appropriate remedy would be to release (him) immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law".
International rights groups, activists and lawyers have repeatedly called for his release.
"The UN Working Group's decision is an unequivocal and resounding endorsement of what we have said all along: Alaa Abd el-Fattah should never have been imprisoned and should not spend another minute in jail," director Fiona O'Brien said in a statement.
According to the experts' report, the Egyptian government provided a response, claiming Abdel Fattah was afforded "all fair trial rights" and that his sentence will be completed in January 2027.
Abdel Fattah was given UK citizenship in 2022 through his British-born mother Soueif, 69, who last week resumed a full hunger strike after two months of easing her protest to a partial hunger strike.
On Thursday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pressed for her son's release in a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
"He underlined how important it is to him to bring an end to the anguish Alaa and his family have faced," according to a Downing Street statement.
Abdel Fattah, a 43-year-old writer and political activist, has become a symbol of Egypt's political prisoners.
He was a key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, and has been detained under successive administrations since.
In September 2019, he was arrested for "spreading false news" by sharing a Facebook post on police brutality.
Since 2022, Sisi's administration has released hundreds of detainees and pardoned several high-profile dissidents, including Abdel Fattah's lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer, but the activist's name has been repeatedly excluded.