Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday granted a presidential pardon to prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British-Egyptian who has spent much of the past decade behind bars, according to state-linked Al-Qahera News. Five others were also pardoned.
Abdel Fattah, 43, rose to prominence as a leading figure in Egypt’s 2011 revolution but has been imprisoned under successive governments. His latest detention followed a 2019 arrest, and in December 2021 he was sentenced to five years in prison for “spreading false news” after posting on Facebook about alleged torture in Egyptian prisons.
Al-Qahera News confirmed: “The pardon includes… Alaa Ahmed Seif El-Islam Abdel Fattah,” noting that all constitutional and legal procedures had been followed.
The move came just days after Sisi asked authorities to review a petition from the state-affiliated National Council for Human Rights seeking pardons for several detainees, including Abdel Fattah. It also followed a Cairo court decision to remove him from Egypt’s terrorism list, citing lack of evidence tying him to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The activist’s case has long drawn international attention. The British government repeatedly raised the matter with Cairo, most recently during Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s talks with Sisi, while the United Nations described his detention as “arbitrary” and called for his release.
Abdel Fattah’s mother, activist and academic Laila Soueif, ended a 10-month hunger strike earlier this year demanding his freedom. Alaa himself began a full hunger strike in September, after months of a partial strike launched in solidarity with her.
The pardon marks the most significant gesture yet by the Egyptian president toward one of the country’s most high-profile political prisoners.
