Robert Jenrick has accused Labour ministers, civil servants and the BBC of a “staggering failure of due diligence” after claiming that the sister of recently freed political prisoner, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, also has a history of violent and extremist views.
The Shadow Justice Secretary raised the allegations in a series of posts on X, criticising the BBC and senior Labour figures for previously praising Mona Abd el-Fattah, the sister of the Egyptian activist.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week welcomed the release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah from detention in Egypt, with the BBC describing his sister Mona as a “human rights defender” during its coverage.
But Mr Jenrick said that publicly available social media posts painted a very different picture.
According to the Conservative frontbencher, Ms Abd el-Fattah posted messages following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in which she described the terrorists’ use of hand gliders to attack kibbutzim and a music festival as “imaginative”.
Mr Jenrick further alleged that she argued Hamas was justified in carrying out the attack, and drew what he described as a “moral equivalence” between Hamas’s actions and Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion.
He also claimed that as far back as 2012, Ms Abd el-Fattah criticised Amnesty International after the organisation called on Hamas to stop attacks on civilians.
In another post, Mr Jenrick said that rather than thanking the UK Prime Minister for helping to secure her brother’s release, Ms Abd el-Fattah urged him to intervene on behalf of individuals awaiting trial for offences linked to Palestine Action, a group that has since been proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
The Shadow Justice Secretary also alleged that her social media accounts contain “violent threats”, including statements in which she said she would “kill” a large number of people.
Ms Abd el-Fattah has previously met numerous senior politicians, including Foreign Secretary David Lammy, now also Deputy Prime Minister, and has been photographed with MPs from across the political spectrum. She was also nominated by the United Nations for a major human rights prize.
Mr Jenrick said: “As with her brother, it only took a few minutes to find these extreme views on her social media.
“You’d have thought civil servants in the FCDO or the politicians who praised her would have done so.”
He questioned whether officials and politicians had failed to investigate her background properly, or whether they were aware of her views but chose not to raise them.
“Perhaps then they would have delved into her brother and spotted that Alaa himself had what Starmer now concedes are ‘abhorrent’ views,” he said.
“It’s hard to comprehend the incompetence. Or maybe they did know Alaa and his sister were extremists, but concealed it because it didn’t suit their agenda? We need answers.”
The BBC, the Foreign Office and Ms Abd el-Fattah have been approached for comment.
