The Imprisoned Egyptian Activist
Yasmine El Rashidi reviews Alaa Abd El-Fattah's You Have Not Yet Been Defeated - Selected Works 2011-2021 in the Atlantic.
“In the summer of 2011, several months after the protest-led ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, I participated in a program on Al Jazeera’s English-language channel called The Café. The setup was intended to mirror the atmosphere of street-side cafés in Egypt at the time, animated with the political debates and newfound openness that the revolution had brought about. Eight of us took part, representing various walks of life and different points along the political spectrum, and we filmed over several hours at an actual café some 10 minutes from Tahrir Square. The most prominent among us was Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a blogger, a computer programmer, and an activist who is currently imprisoned in Cairo’s notorious Tora Prison.”