Arundhati Roy shares PEN Pinter Prize with Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah

Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been named Writer of Courage 2024 by the association of writers, English PEN.

The award was announced by Indian writer Arundhati Roy at a ceremony at the British Library in London on Thursday.

Roy was herself named as the winner of PEN Pinter Prize 2024, and shared her award with Abd el-Fattah.

"The Writer of Courage is awarded to an author who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty, and shares the PEN Pinter Prize with the winner," according to a statement by PEN English.

Abd el-Fattah has been in jail in Egypt for more than five years. His writings from prison and his social media posts were published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in a 2021 book titled You Have Not Yet Been Defeated.

According to his lawyer, Khaled Ali, Abd el-Fattah would have completed his five year sentence on 29 September 2024, but authorities intend to keep him in prison until 3 January 2027.

Ali clarified that the former date marks five years since his initial arrest in 2019 and includes pre-trial detention, whereas the latter date is five years from the ratification of his sentence.

“This effectively nullifies the time he served from September 2019 to January 2022, with the claim that this period was part of his pretrial detention in Case No. 1356 of 2019, which has not yet been concluded,” Ali said in a statement.

Abd el-Fattah was initially arrested on 28 September 2019 after sharing a social media post raising awareness about a fellow prisoner who allegedly died as a result of torture.

After his  arrest, he was referred to the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which charged him in a case numbered 1356, accusing him of joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and misusing social media.

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The writer was subsequently held in pretrial detention for two years.

Abd el-Fattah was referred to a new trial on 10 October 2021 before the Emergency State Security Court, which sentenced him two months, later upgraded to five years in prison. The sentence was ratified by the military governor on 3 January 2022.

In her address, Roy said: "Why did I choose the jailed writer and blogger Alaa Abd el-Fattah as the Writer of Courage to share the PEN Pinter Prize with? For the same reason that Egyptian authorities have chosen to keep him in prison for two more years instead of releasing him last month.

"Because his voice is as beautiful as it is dangerous. Because his understanding of what we are facing today is as sharp as a dagger’s edge."

Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of Egyptian news website Mada Masr, accepted the award on Abd el-Fattah's behalf. 

"For those of us who are engaged in a quest of truth finding, through writing or journalism, or other avenues, Alaa’s courage lies somewhere there," Atallah said.

Hunger strike

Laila Soueif, Abd el-Fattah's mother, has launched a hunger strike to protest his prolonged detention beyond five years.  

“Once again, the Egyptian authorities have violated their own laws to persecute my son. At this stage. I consider this a kidnapping as well as unlawful detention,” the 68-year-old British-Egyptian national said at the end of September, announcing that she will not eat until her son is released.

Soueif said she considers the extension of her son's detention as: “A grave injustice, even beyond the terrible injustice that he has been imprisoned at all."

The family has called on the new Labour government to pressure Egypt to release Abd el-Fattah, who became a British citizen in 2021.

Soueif has announced that she will meet British Foreign Minister David Lammy on 19 October in London to call for her son's release. 

Editor's note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Arundhati Roy was an Indian-British national. Roy's nationality is Indian and not British.