Bodies of protest

Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of Egypt, has resisted the release of a jailed activist during the COP27 conference. Photo: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

From inside the COP27 conference centre, reports filtered out that specific human rights and news websites were being blocked through the wifi, before an interesting twist. Human Rights Watch’s Shantha Rau Barriga tweeted that their organisation’s website was finally accessible – for the first time in years. Egyptians could now read about human rights abuses in their own country, which is a positive twist if ever there was one (note that in 2018 Index awarded The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms with the Freedom of Expression Campaigning Award for their commitment to freedoms in the country, a richly deserved award not least given the dire attack on independent civil society groups Egypt has waged). 

The biggest protest by far was that of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, the imprisoned British-Egyptian writer and activist, who went on a full hunger strike, even rejecting water. His family feared he would die. The Egyptian authorities might have made protest as difficult as possible at the climate conference, but El-Fattah still had this last card.

El-Fattah is an activist, blogger (he and his wife Manal ran Manalaa.net) and writer. He is a father. His fight for democracy and refusal to be silenced has landed him in prison, repeatedly. The cycle in and out of prison began in 2006, following El-Fattah’s involvement in a protest. In 2011 he was a prominent figure in the Egyptian revolution, and found himself behind bars yet again. More charges under protest laws have been a regular fixture in his life, and he’s missed much of his son growing up. His most recent conviction was for “spreading false news” on social media.

El-Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif, who we interviewed last week here, travelled to Egypt to fight for her brother, speaking at the summit under the gaze of the world. Egyptian MP Amr Darwish heckled her and was ejected by security. The UN called for El-Fattah’s release.

After days awaiting proof of life, the family received confirmation that medical intervention has been carried out – which commentators are equating with force-feeding or an IV.

When reporting ends in handcuffs

A Just Stop Oil protester is arrested at a BP garage in August 2022. Police also detained a reporter covering the protest. Photo: Callum Cuddeford/MyLondon

While Just Stop Oil protesters were being prized from bridges, something sinister began to unfold in the UK this week. A video hit social media of press photographer Tom Bowles being arrested (as were documentary filmmaker Rich Felgate and photographer Ben Cawthra) while covering the Just Stop Oil M25 protests. LBC reporter Charlotte Lynch suffered the same fate. But it's not just this week that has seen arrests of journalists for covering protests. Writing on the Index website, MyLondon reporter Callum Cuddeford talks about the day earlier this year when he found himself in handcuffs, in a cell, his mind spiralling.

Callum is hopeful that journalists are a tough enough bunch to keep at it and so won't yet be relegating their press cards to the ranks of glorified coffee coasters. Still he can't state enough just how concerning the current climate it when it comes to media freedom.

To add to concerns, on LBC yesterday morning, Hertfordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner admitted police had “got it wrong”, before making a disturbing suggestion. “We do need to think where they sit on the front pages in newspapers,” he said of Just Stop Oil protests and questioned the “oxygen of publicity” that the campaigners receive from the press. Read what Index had to say in response in the Independent here.

Speaking of fear for media freedom in the UK, Index editor-at-large Martin Bright announces a coalition of organisations taking aim at worrying new legislation that could spell trouble for investigative journalism. Read Journalism is at risk from the National Security Bill. We’re fighting back.

"We deserve more on freedom of expression"

There are some weeks when the scale of news coverage relevant to Index's work is surprising, says our CEO Ruth Smeeth. In a week when Egypt's government has remained deaf to the plight of writer Alaa abd El-Fattah and when police in the UK are stopping journalists from reporting on protests, it increasingly feels like freedom of expression is dominating political debate.