If anybody represents the very British values of democracy, respect for human rights, justice and due process, it is the Egyptian activist

I first encountered Alaa Abd el-Fattah 11 years ago, as a disembodied whisper of reassurance from outside the bars of my grubby prison cell in Cairo. I had just been tossed in the box by Egypt’s El Mukhabarat – the malevolent general intelligence service responsible for internal security – and I was facing an indeterminate run in solitary confinement after being arrested on bogus terrorism charges for my work as a journalist.

Alaa knew the drill. Then just 32, he’d been imprisoned by each of the four previous regimes, and he understood both the institutional meat grinder we were confronting and the psychological stresses I’d have to grapple with.

Peter Greste is a professor of journalism at Macquarie University and the executive director for the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom. In December 2013, he was arrested on terrorism charges while working for Al Jazeera and he was eventually convicted and sentenced to seven years. Under intense international pressure, the Egyptian president ordered his release after 400 days. He is undertaking this protest in his personal capacity

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