AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, before I go — before you go, I wanted to ask about this latest Drop Site News reporting that the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has ordered authorities to examine an appeal from the National Council for Human Rights urging the release of Alaa Abd El-Fattah and six other people on humanitarian grounds. Drop Site said on X, ” A dual British-Egyptian, Abd el-Fattah has been imprisoned over much of the past decade and is currently serving five years for [quote] 'spreading false news.' His sister, Sanaa Soueif, called the move 'really promising' but pressed for urgency.” He was a leader of the 2011 uprising, “a symbol of Egypt’s democratic collapse. His detention — alongside his mother’s hunger strike in protest” in Britain — “has fueled mounting domestic and international pressure for his freedom.” Can you talk more about the significance of this, the possibility of Alaa being freed?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Alaa Abd El-Fattah is one of the most noble humans among us, and he has been rotting in a prison cell and refusing to die. He has been resisting from that prison cell, enduring unspeakable treatment at the hands of the Egyptian authorities.

And let’s remember that that Egyptian revolution that Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the young leaders of resulted in a democratic election, and the democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, was put in prison and then died in a prison cell in a coup that was enacted by General Sisi. And so, his case is a symbol of so much of what we’ve seen happen in that region, that you had this one window in time when the people of Egypt rose up. And it wasn’t that all of the people that were rising up were members of the Muslim Brotherhood or supported the agenda of Mohamed Morsi. It was that they were saying, “We are done with this U.S.-backed dictatorship governing our lives and imposing its authoritarianism on us.”

And so, the attempt to crush the spirit of Alaa Abd El-Fattah has failed. And it’s because of the steadfastness of his mother and his family that we can even imagine a day where he walks out of that prison cell. I think all people who believe in the struggle for liberation, not just in Egypt but that whole region, hold Alaa Abd El-Fattah close to their hearts and hope for the moment that they see him walk out of that prison cell.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, thanks so much for being with us, co-founder of Drop Site News. His latest piece, we’ll link to. It’s an exclusive, “The 100-Word Ceasefire 'Proposal' Trump Sent Hamas.” Thanks so much for being with us from Croatia.

When we come back, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization. Climate activist and author Bill McKibben. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: Billy Bragg singing “Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards” in our Democracy Now! studio.