Dear friends,

Firstly, thank you so much for all your support and help in getting my husband Karim released from prison back in Dec 2020.

Unfortunately, nearly two years on, Karim is still trapped in Egypt, living under an unlawful travel ban and asset freeze. He is unable to leave Egypt to be with me in the UK, he cannot access money or jobs, and we are unable to plan any kind of future together.

Travel bans are a slow and silent form of punishment, by their nature almost impossible to raise media attention about, but have become the systemic tool in Egypt with which human rights defenders are intimidated, punished and cut off from the international community. 

I have become increasingly frustrated by the British government’s lukewarm attempts to try to solve this issue and I’d therefore like to ask you to write to your MP calling on them to sign a letter, which they will have received this week from my MP Rushanara Ali, urging Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Biden to intensify their efforts to get the Egyptian government to lift these punitive measures against Karim, and countless other members of civil society.

Please find a template of the text pasted below. And you can find your local MP here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

Many thanks,

Jess

Dear [Insert name of MP] 

I am writing to express my deep concern for the plight of the British national, Jessica Kelly, whose husband, the human rights defender, Karim Ennarah has been trapped in Egypt for more than a year and half under an unlawful and punitive travel ban and asset freeze which have  been in place since his release from prison in Egypt in Dec 2020. 

I believe you have received a request from Jessica’s MP, Rushanara Ali, to sign a letter calling for the British and American governments to step up their efforts to secure the freedom of Karim and his colleagues at the Egyptian Institute for Personal Rights (EIPR), and I would urge you to add your name to this growing list of signatures. 

If we have learnt anything from the terrible ordeal of Richard Ratcliffe and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe it is that the FCDO needs to be much firmer in standing up to authoritarian governments whose actions are destroying the lives of British nationals. 

If you are unable to sign the letter, I would kindly ask you to encourage the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to make it known to the Egyptian government that the attendance of Britain’s leadership at COP27, which will be held in Sharm el Sheikh in November, should be conditional on the release of Karim and his colleagues. 

Best,

[Insert your name, address, phone number]