SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — The Egyptian authorities have begun a “medical intervention” on the country’s best known political prisoner, Alaa Abd El Fattah, whose long hunger strike has cast a shadow on the proceedings at this week’s United Nations climate summit in Egypt, one of his sisters said on Thursday.
His sister Mona Seif posted the update on Facebook five days after Mr. Abd El Fattah escalated his seven-month hunger strike by refusing to drink water as the climate conference opened in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheikh. Another of his sisters, Sanaa Seif, said this week at the summit that her family feared he was being force fed.
In the Facebook post, Mona Seif said that the intervention was being carried out with the knowledge of judicial authorities, but added that neither her family nor her brother’s lawyers had been told about it.
Senior Egyptian officials, including President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, have faced growing pressure at the climate conference to release Mr. Abd El Fattah. Their statements in meetings and interviews have left room for the possibility that the authorities are keeping Mr. Abd El Fattah fed against his will, though they have cast it as an effort to simply provide health care.
Mr. el-Sisi told the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in a private meeting that he would ensure Mr. Abd El Fattah’s health was “preserved,” according to the French account of the conversation.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, also raised his case directly with Mr. el-Sisi, as did Rishi Sunak, the new prime minister of Britain, where Mr. Abd El Fattah holds dual citizenship through his mother.
Mr. el-Sisi’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, has deflected questions from journalists at the climate summit about whether Egypt should release him, suggesting in response to queries about his hunger strike that Mr. Abd El Fattah was receiving medical treatment.
In an interview with CNBC, Mr. Shoukry said he was “confident that prison authorities will provide the health care available to all prisoners, as is the case in any other penal system.” He also cast doubt on whether Mr. Abd El Fattah was actually on a hunger strike.
Mr. Shoukry also defended the legal process that convicted Mr. Abd El Fattah, saying he was found guilty of spreading false news — a charge stemming from a Facebook post in which Mr. Abd El Fattah had described human rights violations in prison — in a fair trial.
Weeks after Mr. Abd El Fattah began his hunger strike in April, the Egyptian authorities responded by moving him to a different prison with better conditions. He began drinking 100 calories’ worth of milk and honey in his tea daily, but persisted in refusing other food in an attempt to pressure the government into releasing him, or at least allowing consular visits from British officials.
But Egypt remained unmoved, prompting him to stop drinking water and his family to take the campaign to free him to the climate conference.
