Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, according to his lawyer Khaled Ali and Egypt’s state TV.
The 43-year-old had been held in Egyptian prison for six years, becoming one of the country’s most prominent political prisoners.
His 68-year-old mother, Laila Soueif, staged a high-profile 240-day hunger strike in protest of her son’s imprisonment, and was admitted to hospital last year.
Despite several local and international campaigns calling for his release – most notably during Egypt’s hosting of the COP27 climate summit in 2022 – President Sisi only ordered an investigation into his possible pardon in September after the activist’s name had been removed from the country’s “terrorism” list earlier in the year.
His sister, Sanaa, wrote in an emotive post on social media on Monday: “President Sisi has pardoned my brother! Mum and I are heading to the prison now to inquire from where Alaa will be released and when… Oh my god, I can’t believe we get our lives back!”
In 2014, Abd el-Fattah was sentenced to 15 years in prison for protesting without permission, which was later reduced to five years. He remained on parole upon his release in 2019 and was arrested later in the same year for accusations of spreading fake news about a prisoner’s death.
He was sentenced to another five years in prison and was expected to be released early due to time spent in pre-trial detention.
However, prosecutors argued that he should remain in custody until January 2027, prompting his mother to start a hunger strike when he was not released as expected in September 2024.
She was admitted to hospital and warned her life was at risk on the 149th day of her protest. After more than 240 days on hunger strike, she is reported to have lost 36kg (around 42 per cent of her original body weight).
She met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this year to push for her son’s freedom.
Abd el-Fattah obtained British citizenship through his mother in 2021 and hails from a family of well-known activists and intellectuals who had launched multiple campaigns to plead for his release. Earlier this year, a UN investigation concluded Abd el-Fattah was being held illegally.
The former blogger and developer had been detained before the Arab Spring uprising that toppled Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and again during the upheaval that followed.
