Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the Egyptian Government on the (a) detention and (b) interrogation of Azza Soliman, the Egyptian human rights activist and co-founder of Lawyers for Justice and Peace.

We have followed Azza Soliman's case closely, as well as the related Foreign Funding case. We understand that Ms Soliman was released on bail, pending further investigation, in December 2016. On 6 December 2017, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon highlighted Ms Soliman's case in his speech at an Amnesty International Human Rights Day event. UK officials raised the Foreign Funding case with the Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister for Human Rights on 18 April 2018. On 18 September 2018, we made a statement at the UN Human Rights Council in which we expressed concern about the "arrests of activists, bloggers and journalists".