Alaa Abd El-Fattah apologises for historic tweets but says some were 'misunderstood'

British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah apologised 'unequivocally' on 29 December 2025 for 'shocking and hurtful' tweets where he appeared to call for violence against 'Zionists', but claimed some posts were 'completely twisted' or 'misunderstood'. The tweets resurfaced after his return to the UK on Boxing Day 2025, following several years of imprisonment in Egypt. Abd El-Fattah, who was a leading voice in Egypt's 2011 Arab Spring and was pardoned by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in September 2025, said the posts were 'mostly expressions of a young man's anger' and denied Holocaust denial, claiming one tweet ridiculed it. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called for his UK citizenship to be revoked. Abd El-Fattah was granted UK citizenship in December 2021 under Boris Johnson.