Report says British-Egyptian writer held for expressing political views and should be released without delay

The Britsh-Egyptian human rights activist and writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah is being illegally detained by the Egyptian government, an independent UN panel has found after an 18-month investigation.

He is being held in a Cairo jail while his mother, Laila Soueif, based in Britain, is on hunger strike. She is holding a daily one-hour vigil outside Downing Street, the limit her health and weight loss allows. She is on day 241 of the hunger strike, and her body weight has halved.

This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.